New York City Financial Network Action Consortium (NYCfNAC)
Peter Bray, Founder
www.nycfnac.org
The New York City Financial Network Action Consortium (NYCfNAC) is a nonprofit organization addressing the need for banking services in low-income communities. NYCfNAC works with community development credit unions to increase their capacity to provide financial services. Its objective is to close the gap between the one million or more unbanked low-income residents and the credit unions chartered to serve them. NYCfNAC provides operational, financial and technical assistance and presently works with four credit unions located in the South Bronx, Central Harlem, the Lower East Side and East Harlem with total assets of $26 million and 22,000 members with low to moderate income. NYCfNAC is certified as an intermediary Community Development Financial Institution by the US Treasury Department.
NYCfNAC was launched in 1998 with a vision that credit unions have a role to play in community economic development. NYCfNAC programs include shared financial services, networking, infrastructure development, educational outreach activities, and expansion of technical resources that benefit the credit unions and the communities they serve. For example, a centralized lending program expands low-income areas. Another outcome is the development of new credit union branches in several communities.
In 2003, NYCfNAC launched the Earned Income Tax Credit Education Project that reached 50,000 eligible households with educational materials and services. Currently, NYCfNAC’s program called “Initiative for Outreach to the Unbanked” targets underserved populations.