Does “Banking the Unbanked” Help Families to Save? Evidence from the United Kingdom

Abstract

I use an electronic transfer mandate in the UK Child Benefit program, a transfer received by virtually all families with children, to estimate the effect of bank account ownership on the savings behavior of less educated families with children. Compared to similar families without children, the mandate increased account ownership by 9 percentage points (12%) for families with children. Using this exogenous increase in account ownership, I examine the causal effect of transaction account ownership on the accumulation of financial assets. I find evidence of small but significant increases in financial assets for families that transitioned into account ownership. These estimates suggest that a policy to increase bank account ownership may have spillover effects that improve family economic well‐being.