Microfinance Focus, May 26, 2011: The Financial Access Initiative (FAI) at New York University’s Wagner Graduate School of Public Service in collaboration with Bankable Frontier Associates and The Center for Financial Services Innovation has launched a study to understand spending and saving habits of low-income American households.

The $3 million project is supported by a grant from the Citi Foundation and the Ford Foundation. The study will assist financial institutions, government, and nonprofits to understand the low income market develop solutions for it.

The study will be conducted using the Financial Diaries methodology – used for researches for the book ‘Portfolios of the Poor: How the World’s Poor Live on $2 a Day’. The U.S. Financial Diaries team will spend one-and-a-half years with 300 families, in the South, the Northeast, the Midwest and the West.

Observing financial management strategies on a regular basis and over long periods of time, the study will capture financial habits of these households. The findings will be published in a series of reports beginning in mid-2012.

“Improving access to reliable, flexible financial products and services is an important step to help poor and low-income households better manage their economic lives. The Financial Diaries research has proven to be an effective means of gathering important information to inform the design of these kinds of financial tools”, said Jonathan Morduch, managing director of the Financial Access Initiative.