Report

Under the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA), the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) is responsible for performing outreach activities "designed to help customers protect themselves from fraud and other violations of the CEA." As part of this effort, the CFTC developed and tested a series of messages targeting investors who are prime targets for investor fraud. Focus groups were conducted and an online survey was distributed to test the messages. Findings from both phases of this research will be used to develop messages, tone, and imagery for the CFTC's anti-fraud outreach efforts.

Find out how working after beginning to receive retirement benefits can lead to increases or decreases in benefits.

Find out how your Social Security benefits could be affected if you’re eligible for a pension from work not covered by Social Security.

High-level examination of financial capability in the U.S. Military

During 2011 and part of 2012, the FDIC conducted a second nationwide survey of FDIC-insured depository institutions to assess their efforts to serve unbanked and underbanked individuals and families. This survey focuses on banks' basic transaction and savings account programs, auxiliary product and service offerings, financial education and outreach efforts, and perceived challenges as obstacles in offering financial products and services to unbanked and underbanked consumers.

This article summarizes results from the FDIC's Model Safe Accounts pilot, which was launched to determine the feasibility of banks offering affordable transaction and savings accounts to bring more individuals into the financial mainstream.

The Community Financial Access Pilot (CFAP) began in 2008 and was implemented through December 2009 by the U.S.

This report was prepared to provide background on the “Bank On” model, a new approach for expanding access to safe, affordable financial services for unbanked households. The purpose of this report is to describe the landscape of Bank On programs, their origins, and their context within a broader financial access field. The report provides basic information about Bank On programs that currently exist, including information about program structure, partnerships, and funding as well as an assessment of successes, challenges, special considerations and gaps in the field.

This descriptive analysis examines the importance of personal financing sources, especially mortgages secured by residential property, to small businesses from 1998 through 2007. About 80 percent of the total debt owned by small business-owning house-holds is held in mortgages and installment loans. The likelihood of holding a residential mortgage increased from 64.7 percent in 1998 to over 73 percent in 2007, and the share of total debt held in residential mortgages increased from 67.3 percent in 1998 to 70.6 percent in 2007 for small business-owning households.

The State of Minnesota’s Emerging Markets Homeownership Initiative (EMHI) seeks to boost homeownership rates among Minnesota’s “emerging markets,” defined as households of color, non-English speaking households, and households in which English is a second language. Many of the implementation strategies in the EMHI Business Plan address general barriers to homeownership and should increase the number of emerging market households that become first-time homeowners. EMHI doesn’t stop there, however.