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New York City Announces Winners and Honorees for NYC[X] Moonshot: Financial Inclusion, Celebrating Innovative Solutions for Unbanked and Underbanked New Yorkers

December 22, 2021

NEW YORK — Today the City of New York announced the NYC[x] Moonshot: Financial Inclusion Challenge winners and honorees, celebrating the diverse range of innovative solutions proposed to aid unbanked and underbanked New Yorkers. The four winners are Mobility Capital Finance Inc. (MoCaFi), Lower East Side People’s Federal Credit Union, finEQUITY, and Proyecto Verde. Honorable mentions were awarded to Dora Financial LLC, Varo Bank, First Generation Investors, Inc, and Local Board, Inc. 

Together, the winners and honorees demonstrate the powerful role technology can play in serving the public good. With breakthrough financial inclusion services, innovative governance and business models, and culturally relevant approaches to communities, the winners and honorees of this NYC[x] Moonshot Challenge offer bold new ways for unbanked and underbanked New Yorkers to access financial services and build community wealth. 

“The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the urgent need for solutions that support the financial security and empowerment of New Yorkers from lower-income communities of color.” said Deputy Mayor for Administration and Chief of Staff Emma Wolfe. “The City of New York congratulates the NYC[x] Moonshot: Financial Inclusion Challenge winners and honorees for their timely, bold, and creative solutions to expand financial inclusion in the Bronx and across New York City.”

“As the City continues to embark on a journey to expand its economic democracy footprint, we are proud to say that the response to our challenge has exceeded expectations.” said Deputy Mayor for Strategic Policy Initiatives J. Phillip Thompson. “With over 70 applicants, the City flexed its collaborative arm to bring together City staff, community organizations, and private sector leaders in an effort to improve outcomes for unbanked and underbanked New Yorkers. We look forward to the great work from our winners.”

“Nobody should be trapped in poverty because they are unbanked or underbanked, or left paying high fees and fines for financial services essential to daily life.” said New York City Chief Technology Officer John Paul Farmer. “The NYC[x] Moonshot: Financial Inclusion Challenge winners and honorees represent an extraordinary range of innovative, tech-enabled, culturally-relevant, and much-needed solutions from diverse teams and partnerships. We look forward to helping advance these solutions with the aim of improving the lives of everyday New Yorkers.” 

“This Moonshot has highlighted many novel solutions that could help to close the financial inclusion and racial wealth gaps in New York City.” said Jen Noborikawa, New York City Director of Moonshots and Senior Advisor for Inclusive Innovation. “We’re thrilled with these innovative solutions that leverage technology and center the needs of unbanked Bronxites in order to increase accessibility, affordability, safety, trust, empowerment, and impact across New York City.” 

The range of ideas in the proposals are a testament to the effectiveness of the NYC[x] Moonshot model as a means to surface important, transformative, and timely solutions to some of the City’s most entrenched challenges. The NYC[x] Moonshot: Financial Inclusion Challenge contributes fresh ideas to the national conversation on poverty and wealth-building and can serve as a model for other cities as they seek new ways to address financial inequities in their communities.   

WINNERS

BANKING

“New York City is the financial capital of the world. Yet, there is a staggering wealth gap across the five boroughs, and our state has the most significant income disparity between the top 1% of earners and the remaining 99%,” said Wole Coaxum, Founder & CEO, MoCaFi. “Now, through the innovative partnership of MoCaFi, the United Way of NYC, AHA Strategies!, and OFF School Grounds, we can be at the vanguard of ensuring that all New Yorkers have access to quality financial services that will address this wealth gap.” “35 years ago, at a time when capital was abandoning New York City that resulted in the closure of the last Bank branch in our neighborhood, residents and activist of the Lower East Side came together to organize the LES Peoples FCU to build community wealth,” said Aissatou Barry-Fall, President & CEO, Lower East Side People’s Federal Credit Union. “35 years later, we are excited to bring this resource to residents of the Jerome Avenue corridor and other un/underbanked Bronx communities to go from having no bank in their neighborhood to owning a credit union branch.”

CREDIT

  • finEQUITY: Addresses credit invisibility by providing micro-loans to help justice-impacted residents establish credit necessary to access apartments, car rentals, and more affordable financial and cell phone services through tech-enabled interventions. Partner: Circles of Support
  • Proyecto Verde: Small business lending platform which allows financial institutions to better assess the risk profile of no-credit, credit-thin, and immigrant small business owners using a non-FICO risk model and native-language first experience.

“This Challenge elevated quality affordable and no-cost financial services for communities like the ones our team grew up in,” said Briane Cornish, Founder, finEQUITY. “Decades of extractive financial practices have done damage that needs to be undone. We are excited to be a part of a group of winners who are using culturally relatable tech-enabled interventions for unbanked and underbanked communities in the Bronx and across New York City.”

“Working at American Express and Goldman Sachs, I realized there were few who looked like me or grew up in an immigrant, working-class community like the one I had,” said Gabriela Ariana Campoverde, Founder, Proyecto Verde. “It’s part of why there are few products focused on these communities, and I want to be part of a new wave of fintechs that changes that. My company is focused on one thing — expanding access to financing capital because we understand investing in small businesses has a multiplier effect for the businesses, owners, and local economies.”

HONORABLE MENTIONS

BANKING

  • Dora Financial LLC: First cooperative neo-bank, designed to reduce racial and economic disparities in banking access by providing transparent, fair, and bilingual (Spanish/English) digital banking services to the underserved community.
  • Varo Bank: All-digital national bank that offers premium bank accounts, industry-leading savings rates, cash advances, a secured credit card and other products designed to help consumers safely climb the broken wealth ladder.

“We want to change how people think about access to affordable and fair financial services.” said Kristi Kenworthy, Managing Director, Dora Financial. “Fifty-million Americans are not participating in mainstream banking services because of barriers to opening, distrust of the banking system, gaps in awareness, past history, or lack of access – including the lack of a fully bilingual digital banking experience. Dora combines the best of fintech mobile applications with an affordable checking account to bring modernized banking to virtually everyone.”

“Addressing the inequities and barriers to access within our banking system would be impossible without meaningful partnership across sectors,” said Colin Walsh, Founder & CEO, Varo Bank, N.A. “As the only all-digital and mission-driven national bank, the Varo team is proud to be named an honorable mention in the City of New York’s Financial Inclusion Challenge. Collaborating with and learning from others who share our vision for a more inclusive financial system will help us all build a brighter future for NYC’s underbanked communities.”

COMMUNITY ECONOMICS

  • Local Board, Inc.: Alternative financial market that allows neighborhood residents to invest in the small businesses near them, blending capital-raising ability of publicly-traded capital markets with the social service impact of a community board.

“Local Board helps New Yorkers invest in their local economies by applying financial market mechanisms to small businesses,” said Regena Reyes, Founder, Local Board.

EDUCATION

“We are thrilled to be selected as an honorable mention for the NYC[x] Moonshot: Financial Inclusion Challenge,” said Joseph Kakkis, Treasurer & Head of Fundraising, First Generation Investors, Inc. “FGI’s mission to bring long-term investing and personal finance education to underserved high school students makes this challenge an exciting opportunity to expand access to this education across New York City. The initiative brings us one step closer to ensuring every student has the opportunity to learn the fundamentals of financial literacy and the power of investing.”

FINALISTS

BANKING 

  • Spring Bank: Makes e-Bikes affordable and available to all NYC workers through employer partnerships and Happy Mango’s fin-tech solution. Partner: Happy Mango Inc.

“Spring Bank has a mission to provide affordable financing to NYC workers. We are excited to launch our newest product, low-interest electric-bike loans,” said Melanie Stern, CRA Officer & Director of Consumer Lending, Spring Bank. “It’s all about getting affordable micro-mobility into the hands of New Yorkers who need it the most. In partnership with NYC employers and employees, we are supporting safe, efficient, affordable, environmentally friendly movement on NYC streets, while helping individuals build savings and credit through Happy Mango’s quick and simple fin-tech solution.” 

COMMUNITY ECONOMICS 

  • Blackfacts.com: Creating the Ujamaa Community Economics Platform for unbanked residents to use its fintech app Wicket to make purchases at local stores and incentivizing local commerce by making it economically advantageous to shop local. Partners: Silicon Harlem, Wicket Digital Bank

“Since putting Boston’s Roxbury community online at Roxbury.com 20 years ago, I’ve been looking for another opportunity to apply my technology expertise to lift up an urban community,” said Ken Granderson, Founder / CTO BlackFacts.com. “As a native and repatriated New Yorker, being a Finalist for an idea that could improve the lives of a million fellow New Yorkers is a dream come true, especially when partnering with Community Technology visionaries like Silicon Harlem and Wicket Digital Bank, which serves the underbanked.”

CREDIT

  • SoLo Funds: On-demand community lending marketplace that allows members easy access to short-term funds for immediate needs & returns.
  • Namma: Making family-and-friends-lending seamless, formal, and easy by  removing the awkwardness of asking while encouraging documentation.

“As African-American technology founders and former Bronx residents, we intimately understand the need for financial service solutions that actually provide solutions for real problems,” said Rodney Williams, Co-founder, SoLo Funds, Inc. “We created SoLo to address real problems in our communities. We’re excited to work with NYC in creating pathways to financial mobility.”

“Namma’s vision is to make digital contracts the way to track transactions between known networks globally,” said Sonal Bagga, Founder, Namma. “Our mission is to provide services to make contracting easy & less taboo – thereby allowing family and friends to invest into their network with peace of mind.”

DEBT

  • Revival Inc.: Empowers borrowers by allowing them to buy out and eliminate their debt at the same pennies-on-the-dollar rate that it gets sold to debt collections agencies.

“You can’t talk about the issue of unbanked New Yorkers if you aren’t willing to talk about the issue of predatory lending, and how banks hide behind fees and account minimums to steal from working people,” said Daryl Holman Jr., Founder, Revival Inc. 

EDUCATION

  • Goalsetter: Debit card, savings, and investment app that teaches your kids and teens finance through games, memes and pop-culture.

“We are extremely excited to be a finalist in the NYC[x] Moonshot Financial Inclusion Challenge,” said Tanya Van Court, CEO & Founder, Goalsetter. “I truly believe that together we will rewrite the course of history for all communities that have been marginalized due to their lack of access to financial education and investment tools that uniquely engage them.”

PHILANTHROPY

  • True Given: A low-cost technology platform for community-minded organizations to create and manage cash assistance programs easily.

“We hope to prove that by making cash assistance programs easy to manage, efficient, and more accessible, there will be an increase in the intake of financial products from unbanked and underbanked communities, specifically checking accounts and credit building products,” said Babatunde Ajao, CEO, True Given. “Innovative approaches are needed to build community wealth and sustainable economic opportunities in the Bronx, New York City, and the United States.”
 

NOTABLE SUBMISSIONS

BANKING

  • Self-Employed: Platform incentivizing unbanked / underbanked for good long-term financial decisions, starting with a prize-linked savings account to compete with lotteries / scratch-offs.

CREDIT 

  • The SMBX: Aa way for small businesses to access capital from their communities, and for everyday investors to grow their wealth.
  • Highline: A new, more effective bill payment method that expands access to credit and gives customers peace of mind.

INVESTING 

NEED FOR FINANCIAL INCLUSION CHALLENGE 

Across New York City, over one million households have no bank account (unbanked) or have bank accounts but use alternative financial products for some banking needs (underbanked). In the Bronx, 49% of households are unbanked or underbanked compared to 33% across New York City and 26% nationally. 

The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated many systemic inequalities, drawing heightened attention to the financial fragility of communities of color. Decades of low incomes and structural barriers such as the lack of access to culturally competent brick and mortar financial institutions that offer safe, affordable, and accessible banking products and services, has combined with a lack of trust and enabled the proliferation of predatory and extractive alternative financial products. 

“Our Office of Financial Empowerment is a proud partner of the NYC[x] Moonshot: Financial Inclusion Challenge to help support real financial solutions for New York City’s more than 300,000 unbanked households,” said Department of Consumer and Worker Protection Commissioner Peter A. Hatch. “A gap exists between those New Yorkers that do not have bank accounts and the resources necessary for creating one. We applaud the Challenge participants whose practical ideas will bridge that gap and deliver critical change to communities across the Bronx and throughout the City.”

“At the NYC Department of Small Business Services, we believe that a sustainable recovery for our City should embrace the tremendous diversity of our business owners and the communities that they serve,” said Kenneth Ebie, Executive Director & Chief Development Officer of Black Entrepreneurs NYC (BE NYC). “We are truly excited about the opportunity to support a diverse group of entrepreneurs with the resources and opportunities to expand financial inclusion for our City’s unbanked and under-banked communities through the NYC[x] Moonshot: Financial Inclusion Challenge.”

“When we launched this initiative, we knew NYC was an innovative city, however we have been blown away by the strength and creativity of the responses to our challenge, said Jordan Stockdale, Executive Director, the Young Men’s Initiative. “The winning applicants will surely improve outcomes for unbanked and underbanked New Yorkers – particularly in the Bronx.”

EVALUATION PROCESS

An evaluation panel consisting of community, industry, and government representatives reviewed proposals to identify the most creative, community-focused approaches with the potential to alleviate persistent financial challenges and open up wealth-building opportunities for low-income and predominantly Black and Latinx New Yorkers, particularly those residing in the Bronx. The panel reviewed 73 proposals submitted from over 30 cities in 10 countries, assessing them across nine categories: accessing basic banking, building and securing credit, tackling debt, gaining financial education, obtaining cash assistance, engaging in investing, accessing ownership, growing small businesses, and building community wealth. 

ABOUT THE PARTNERS

NYC Mayor’s Office of the Chief Technology Officer (MOCTO)

Our mission is to ensure that technology is inclusive, accessible, human-centered, and works for all New Yorkers. We view technology as a critical tool for making New York City the fairest big city in America. Our work is organized around four pillars: Universal Broadband, ensuring high-quality, affordable internet for all New Yorkers; Inclusive Innovation, making New York City the place where new ideas are applied to improve lives; Digital Services, delivering government services online to make government work better for everyone; and Emerging Tech & Society, advancing laws, rules, and plans that promote the public good and protect New Yorkers’ digital rights. Learn more at nyc.gov/cto.

NYC Department of Consumer and Worker Protection Office of Financial Empowerment (OFE)

Within the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection (DCWP), the Office of Financial Empowerment (OFE) focuses on initiatives that support New Yorkers and communities with low incomes in building wealth and improving their financial health. OFE is the first local government initiative in the country with the mission to educate, empower, and protect New Yorkers and neighborhoods with low incomes so they can build assets and make the most of their financial resources. OFE uses data and research, policy, partnerships, and convenings to advance its mission. Using this model, OFE is able to develop, offer, and advocate for innovative programs and products for all New Yorkers.

NYC Department of Small Business Services (SBS)

SBS helps unlock economic potential and create economic security for all New Yorkers by connecting New Yorkers to good jobs, creating stronger businesses, and building thriving neighborhoods across the five boroughs.

NYC Young Men’s Initiative (YMI)

YMI was created as a public-private partnership to address increasing disparities among black and Latino men between the ages of 16 and 24 in education, employment, health and justice. The YMI mission is to develop and champion policies, programs and partnerships that holistically support the success of young men of color throughout NYC.

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