Kiki said:

I've been considering something like this, but more from this perspective: There is clearly a need for a financial institution that will:

- help financially challenged folks control their money

- educate financially illiterate folks

- provide an alternative to exploitive "payday" lenders & check cashers*

In thinking about it, I've called "the Artists' Bank" or "the Peoples' Bank" -- in recognition that some of us are just not good with money. I'm very intelligent, well educated, fortunately employed in a good-paying job... and I SUCK at money. I've been trying for many years to get better, but I've come to the realization that I just need someone else to run my money. I think an "Artists" bank could do that, by:

- helping folks set budgets & goals

- set up automatic bill-paying & deductions into many different "pockets" (not separate accounts, but something that allows you to "set aside" reserve cash for specific bills/goals)

- enforcing those budgets & goals - maybe they can only be changed 1 month at a time, or require a group of fellow bank account-holders, or a bank manager, to agree or something?

- perhaps some kind of self-help "Fiscal Anonymous" group, with weekly/monthly meetings to discuss goals/progress

- filing taxes or providing assistance

etc.

What do you think?

- Kiki

*I've heard that the city of San Francisco has set up an institution that allows people without bank accounts to cash checks and get micro loans, without the exorbitant fees normally charged - but I don't know if this is true.

Hi I think you just described a credit union.  At least it sounds like my credit union.

You're welcome.  I just hope I didn't come off as some nitpicker or critic.

I know this is a sort of a nitpick, but JaK isn't an islamic bank, in fact the only thing in common it shares with islamic banking is it's interest free nature, and even that is done differently.  JaK was started as a movement in Demark to both rid people of interest related problems and re-localize certain sectors of the economy.  Islamic banking has different origins and intentions.

This is a very interesting strategy.  It looks like someone is aiming it at the intrinsic problem of money, that if you were to ever have a non-growing physical economy the way money is used you'd still have multiplying financial ownership of it.  

The correction for that I know of was first discovered by JM Keynes, (who was also the first to be ridiculed for it too, of course!), which was essentially for the wealthy to stop growing their savings by spending their investment returns rather than continuing to accumulate them.    

Is that behind your thinking somewhere, what Keynes and then Ken Boulding called "the widow's cruse" after a Bible story about Elijah giving an old widow an inexhaustible cup of oil?    For macro-economic stability when physical system growth began to run into resistance, everyone would spend all their investment income, and increase their savings only from their labor income, or some model with similar effect.    It essentially turns the "giant pool of money" into "an endowment of the whole", giving wealthy investors the difficult task of figuring out how best to spend all their earnings, to bring a free market growth economy to stable climax and avoid destroying the earth in the process.

That seems a lot like what you're doing.   Is there a connection?   You can find most of my things on it searching with Google using {site:synapse9.com Keynes} in the search.

It is high time to plot the investment accumulation and the target required to open the bank.  Am I overlooking this?  Even if only a small fraction of the target is accumulated, the public needs to know and track the progress.

John Smart said:

I love the concept here, but am worried about some of the ideas - I speak with some knowledge here - e launched host2help.com as a community company, and have vry strong goals for its community presence, That said, saying that the 27 cent fee will be carried by the bank, well, I love my bank, and when my account is in the black, they love me, but be it a bank or a CCU, their end goal is the bottom line. Why would a bank want to work at a loss? It may be 'only 27 cents' but if this takes off, and you are looking at tens of thousands of daily transactions, that soon adds up. he other side is cost usage. The 27 cent transaction fee in part pays for that security so if nasty person steals my credit card and spends say $500, I do not have to be $500 out of pocket. How will that be covered here?
I really do not want to sound like a naysayer. I think this is an awesome idea, and I would love to be involved, I just hope there are better fundemental ideas than letting the banks carry the cost - to put this in another light:
host2help.com (my company) is a web host. All web sites need to be 'stored' on a web host. We are different - we give 1/ of all our revenue to good causes chosen by our clients, and another 1/3 to our reseller (thus allowing anyone to earn a sustainable income). This seriously impedes our bottom line - we still have to offer the best available services. These costs all have to be carried in house. I do not think my competitors (locally or globally) would look at what I am doing and say "Awesome – that’s a great idea - here let me carry some of your costs” (Although, it would be nice if they did!)
Again, I truly do not want to be down playing thins - there is a great idea here, I just hope all the details are worked out.

Good luck!

"Why would a bank want to work at a loss?"

More importantly, what kind of fool would want to invest in such a bank?