Implode-o-Meter News - Platinum Card and Text Alert, via Pawnshop

As banks zero in on more affluent customers who promise twice the revenue of their lower-income counterparts, close branches in poor areas and remain stingy with credit, pawnshops are revamping their image and stepping into the void to offer financial services.
... pawnshops are offering services like check cashing, Western Union money transfers, bill payment and prepaid cards to customers who are "getting forgotten in the banking system," said Jerry Whitehead of the Pawnshop Consulting Group.

The services are not, generally, big moneymakers for the shops. The main attraction is that they bring in traffic, and many of those shoppers go on to buy items from the pawnshop or to take out a pawn loan themselves -- and that is where the stores make their money.

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Platinum Card and Text Alert, via Pawnshop