Wednesday, March 18, 2015

Banked and Unbanked

  • 7.7% of US households were "unbanked" in 2013. Unbanked refers to not having an account in an insured institution supervised by the FDIC. "Underbanked" households, who may have an account but have used "alternative financial services" (AFS) in the past year including money orders, check cashing, remittances, payday loans, refund anticipation loans, rent-to-own services, pawn shop loans, and auto title loans, accounted for 20% of US households, comprising 16 million adults and 8 million children.
  • 34% of unbanked say that a job loss resulted in them dropping banking services: 20% said that a new job allowed or required them to open up a new bank account.
  • 95% of recent Chinese immigrants to New York City surveyed in Sunset Park, Brooklyn in 2013 said they were "banked." 15% described themselves as undocumented. 60% immigrated from an urban region in China. These immigrants had an average of 1 child, 10.5 years of education, and self-rated their English ability as a 2.1 on a scale of 5.

Wednesday, March 4, 2015

Deferred gross margin


  • On bigger projects where income is accrued in installments, instead of being closed to the income summary, it's closed to a contra-A/R account called "deferred gross margin." It's shifted to "realized gross margin" when cash is received.
  • Revenue recognition practices for a company are required to be listed by the SEC, usually they are written after the financial statements in Special accounting notes.
  • Foreign exchange markets have been one of the most affected by financial regulation due to accusations that big banks were rigging markets.