When I was old enough to count, my parents gave me an allowance of coins. Pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters filled a tin. One day, my parents decided to take my sister and me to the Galleria to force us to spend all of our money to buy toys. It didn’t mean much to me at the time because in the short term, I didn’t have any use for the cash anyway, but I now see that it was a stepping stone for how I view things today.

My parents reinforced time after time the importance of saving money. I practiced keeping a ledger: a collection of financial debits and credits, and learned about the force that drives the world: money.

I opened my first savings account in middle school. I especially remember when I visited the Fidelity building for the first time in seventh grade, a green color-coded haven. 

From keeping track of what was in my wallet to what I had saved in the bank, this sparked my interest in becoming an accountant. Organizing the ins and outs of inventory over long periods of time just gave me a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment, like how I feel whenever I’ve completely mastered a topic in math class. 

While my parents are proactive in my financial education, I know that many other kids my age don’t have the same experience. I remember feeling a bit shocked to hear that the treasurer of my club had never heard of a ledger. 

While it may feel unnecessary to have a bank account now, since “I’m just a kid,” opening an account will make you much more prepared for becoming an adult, which isn’t too far away for most high school students. I’m sure that many of us students complain that the “education system doesn’t teach us how to file our taxes,” so let’s at least do the bare minimum and open an account. 

Living in the fourth largest populous city in America, we are surrounded by 2.3 million people in Houston alone. I recently learned that of those citizens, 10% of households are unbanked in 2021. Texas’s population as of 2022 was above 30 million, with around 5.6% of them being unbanked in 2023.

People who are unbanked are those who do not use any services given by banks. Underbanked is a similar term, referring to families that have a checking or savings account but rely more on alternative services to banking like unbanked persons (i.e. check cashing or payday loans). 

Not only is being unbanked unsafe and unpredictable, it can also trap people in poverty without protected wealth.

According to the FDIC (Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation), people who are lower income, less educated and people of color are most likely to be unbanked, with more than 20% of Latinx and around 15% of Black Houstonians being unbanked as of 2021.

Immigrants also tend to be unbanked because they may be unsure about how long their stay in America is. Lack of knowledge on American banks can also bring a sense of distrust. 

The less educated tend to have not as informed decisions on trust or just knowledge on banks and therefore remain non reliant on them. Undocumented immigrants similarly feel untrustworthy of banks because of fear of being deported. 

People of lower education tend to also have a lower income and have trouble meeting minimum balance requirements, privacy concerns or want to avoid paying fees. 

People with lower income may also live in bank deserts (places far from banks), giving them little to no access to banking services. 

Different banks have different requirements, so it’s important to do a little research behind each bank to see what they need. Having a supervised bank account can also be easier if your parent also has a bank account under the same bank. 

Opening a bank account under…

• Capital One
• Bank of America
• Well’s Fargo
• Or you can use this list from earlier for opening a bank account without a Social Security Number.

To decrease the number of unbanked in Houston, Bank on Houston is a program that collaborates with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), banks and other organizations to help people find “low-cost bank accounts that are free of excessive bank requirements.”