Banking desert

Banking desert is an area with inadequate banking services. Especially vulnerable to the issues associated with banking deserts are low-income residents and the elderly. If basic financial services are unavailable, residents become "vulnerable to predatory lenders and pricey check cashers". In the US, banking deserts are more often found in communities of color than they are elsewhere. Banking deserts had been mentioned as early as the 1870s, by Tullio Martello and Augusto Montanari in their book, Stato attuale del credito in Italia e notizie sulle istituzioni di credito straniere, regarding Italian unification. The term had also been used to describe the situation in Newfoundland and Labrador during the period of 1993 to 2003, when the Canadian provinces had lost 23% of its bank branches.