| Course | FI310 FinTech Principles and Concepts |
|---|---|
| Unit | Unit 9 |
| Paper type | Financial inclusion analysis |
| Length | About 580 words, 5 pages double-spaced |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Purdue University Global |
| Program | BS in Finance |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for FI310 Unit 9
Thirty-One Thousand Signups, How Many Newly Banked? A Unit 9 Financial Inclusion Analysis of an App-Only Account
[Student Name]
Purdue University Global
FI310: FinTech Principles and Concepts
Unit 9 Financial Inclusion Analysis
[Instructor Name]
[Date]
The account, the city, its survey and every figure are composite; the FDIC survey, article and book cited are real.
The Product Against the Barriers
The account has no minimum balance, no monthly fee and no overdraft fees; a purchase that would overdraw the account is simply declined. It offers early access to direct-deposited pay, free transfers and a debit card. Everything happens in the app; there are no branches.
National surveys find that the most common reasons unbanked households give for not having an account are not having enough money to meet minimum balances, distrust of banks, high or unpredictable fees, and privacy concerns (Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, 2024). The product answers fees and minimums directly. It does nothing for distrust and may worsen access for households without reliable smartphones or data plans.
Who Signed Up
A signup survey, answered by 6,200 of the 31,000 new customers, asked what they used before opening the account. Seventy-one percent switched from another bank or credit union, usually to escape overdraft fees. Eleven percent already had an account but had relied on check cashers or money orders alongside it. Eighteen percent said they had no account before.
Applied to all 31,000, about 5,600 accounts belong to people who were previously unbanked. That is real progress, but it amounts to under twenty percent of the headline figure.
Are They Still Using It?
Of accounts opened by previously unbanked customers, 62 percent were still active after six months, defined as at least one deposit and five transactions a month. Among switchers, 81 percent were active. The gap suggests some previously unbanked customers opened accounts but did not move their income into them, often because their employers pay by paper check and the app's check deposit limits were low for new accounts.
Inclusion is measured by people who move their financial lives into an account and stay, not by accounts opened, and on that measure the product reached about 3,500 previously unbanked residents, a meaningful number that the 31,000 headline both inflates and hides.
Who Is Still Outside
The city's previously estimated unbanked population was about 19,000 adults. After the product's first year, roughly 15,500 remain unbanked, using the active figure. Three groups stand out in the survey's open responses and the city's own data: older residents without smartphones, workers paid in cash who have nothing to deposit electronically, and residents who distrust financial institutions because of past account closures. An app-only, fee-free account does not reach any of them.
Why It Matters
Research shows that digital data can help lenders and providers serve customers that traditional processes miss (Berg et al., 2020), but access also requires the means and the willingness to use digital channels. A product that reaches mostly existing bank customers improves their lives by removing overdraft fees, which is valuable, but it should not be described as solving the unbanked problem.
Recommendations
Report active previously unbanked customers as the inclusion measure. Raise mobile check deposit limits after sixty days of good history, since paper paychecks are the main barrier for workers who did join. Partner with a community organization that serves older residents and offer a phone-based setup option. These steps target the people the launch did not reach (Chishti & Barberis, 2016).
References
Berg, T., Burg, V., Gombović, A., & Puri, M. (2020). On the rise of FinTechs: Credit scoring using digital footprints. The Review of Financial Studies, 33(7), 2845-2897. https://doi.org/10.1093/rfs/hhz099
Chishti, S., & Barberis, J. (2016). The FinTech book: The financial technology handbook for investors, entrepreneurs and visionaries. Wiley.
Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. (2024). 2023 FDIC national survey of unbanked and underbanked households. FDIC.
What the FI310 Unit 9 assignment asks for
Unit 9 of FI310 asks you to evaluate a fintech product's effect on financial inclusion. Describe the product's features and set them against the barriers national data identifies for unbanked households. Use whatever data you have to estimate how many users were previously unbanked or underbanked, and show the arithmetic. Test whether those users stayed, with a defined measure of active use. Estimate who remains outside after the launch and identify the groups the product cannot reach. Distinguish between benefits to existing bank customers and real inclusion. Recommend changes that target the people missed, stating their cost or tradeoff. Cite the FDIC household survey and research on digital data in finance in APA 7, and label composite figures as illustrative.
Inside the FI310 Unit 9 example
The sample lists the account's features: no minimum, no monthly or overdraft fees, early pay access and no branches. It matches them against the reasons households give in the FDIC survey and notes that distrust and phone access go unaddressed. Survey answers from 6,200 customers split into 71 percent switchers, 11 percent underbanked and 18 percent unbanked. Six-month activity, defined as one deposit and five transactions a month, reaches 62 percent for the unbanked against 81 percent for switchers. The highlighted sentence makes active use the measure. An estimate of who is left puts roughly 15,500 of 19,000 adults still unbanked, and a section names three groups: older residents without smartphones, workers paid in cash and people wary after past account closures.
FI310 Unit 9 rubric: what earns full points
Inclusion analyses in FI310 earn points for separating signups from people newly brought into the system. Graders check that national barrier data is matched to the product's features, that estimates show their arithmetic, that active use is defined and measured, and that the people still excluded are identified. The rubric rewards honesty about who benefits, including existing customers, and recommendations aimed at the groups missed. Analyses that repeat a launch's headline figure as inclusion, skip retention or treat app access as universal score lower. FDIC survey data cited accurately and composite figures labeled as such make the estimate credible, and a short note on what the figures cannot show keeps it honest.
FI310 Unit 9 help from the desk
Weak Unit 9 analyses take the headline count of new accounts as the inclusion result. Others assume every user was unbanked, which can overstate impact five times over. Retention is often ignored, so accounts opened and abandoned count as success. The people who need cash services, phone-free setup or trust are left out. Recommendations focus on marketing rather than on the barriers, and none states what the change would cost the provider, which makes them easy to dismiss. If your scenario concerns a prepaid card, a credit-builder loan or a remittance app, a writer can estimate that product's inclusion effect from the data your prompt supplies.
Get an FI310 Unit 9 example written to your instructions
Point to the product your Unit 9 prompt assesses and the population it claims to serve, and include any data your section supplied along with the FI310 rubric and instructions. Inclusion is defined, switchers are separated from newcomers where the figures allow, and every exclusion is tied to a product feature. The first custom sample is free, in 24-48h. The paper above is an original model document written by our desk, not a submitted student paper and not an official Purdue University Global document.
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FI310 Unit 9 questions, answered
Where can I find data on unbanked households?
The FDIC runs a recurring national survey of household use of banking and financial services, with breakdowns by income, age, race, disability and region, and it records the reasons households give for not having an account. Local figures are harder to find. The sample's signup split is composite, and it is labeled as such so a reader never mistakes it for survey data.
How does this unit connect to the rest of FI310?
It applies the course's question, what a technology displaced and what that cost, to people rather than processes. The app displaced the check casher and the branch, and the sample asks who benefited from that displacement and who was left paying the old costs or new ones. Earlier units on lending and payments feed directly into it, particularly the automated identity and underwriting checks.
Where can I find a free FI310 Unit 9 sample paper?
This page holds a full FI310 Unit 9 financial inclusion analysis of a composite app-only account with 31,000 signups, estimating newly banked users, retention, who remains outside and APA 7 references.
Why measure active accounts instead of accounts opened?
Because an opened account that never receives income does not change how someone handles money. The sample counts customers with at least one deposit and five transactions a month after six months, which cuts the inclusion figure from about 5,600 to about 3,500.
Who does an app-only, fee-free account miss?
In the sample, older residents without smartphones, workers paid in cash who have nothing to deposit electronically, and residents who distrust banks after past account closures. Removing fees does not reach any of them.