This is our first episode in Financial Inclusion month. Every year we dedicate one month to financial inclusion – my goal is to highlight and bring awareness to what the payments and/or fintech industry does today to help with the global challenge of financial inclusion and to discuss what more we can do. 

The Clearing House is a banking association and a payments company that is governed by about 23 of the largest financial institutions in the United States. They move money through wires, ACH and check images and maybe are most known for their RTP network which is the nation's newest payment system that provides instant clearing and settlement of payments here in the United States. 

Elena and I go on to talk about some of the challenges that the under-banked and unbanked face, how important it is to bring these segments of the population into the financial system and how companies and other organizations are leveraging the Real Time Payments network. 

We go deep on the importance of Earned Wage Access for both the employee and the employer. This is a vital program that can help the underserved community and is becoming more and more popular. 

Before we dive into the episode, I want to give a special thanks to The Clearing House for sponsoring Financial Inclusion month. To learn more about The Clearing House just visit www.theclearninghouse.org