MICHELE NORRIS, Host:
As NPR's Elaine Korry reports, the National League of Cities says the program is a model for the rest of the nation.
ELAINE KORRY: For most middleclass people, it's hard to imagine how anyone might get by without a checking account, or automated tellers. But it's a convenience that 50,000 people in san Francisco didn't have. They're a population known as the unbanked.
BILL GANDY: Not having a bank account really does cripple you.
KORRY: Bill Gandy is a 49-year-old computer programmer. He used to spend hours traversing the city to pay his rent, telephone, gas and electric bill all in cash. Besides wasting time, not having a bank account also cost Gandy money.
GANDY: You incur a lot of fees at the check-cashing places, and that's 100, 200 bucks sometimes. So that's highly inconvenient.
KORRY: It hadn't always been that way, about nine years ago, Gandy had a checking account then lost it through his own financial mistake.
GANDY: I had a little bit of problem. I was going through a relationship that broke off. We built weird little mishmash with our finances at the end. And it threw us into a situation where all of a sudden, we were on checks system.
KORRY: Checks system is like a financial blacklist for customers who mishandle checking accounts. Once on the blacklist, it's very hard to get off. Many other San Franciscans didn't qualify for a checking account, mostly because of their low income. Like Gandy, they had to rely on check-cashing outlets. And that bothered Jose Cisneros, the city treasurer of San Francisco.
JOSE CISNEROS: It really just tore me out to think about, literally, thousands of folks in the city having to pay these unnecessary, unreasonably high fees just to get access of their own funds.
KORRY: Michele Ashley with Wells Fargo said Gandy's is one of 2,000 new accounts they've opened.
MICHELE ASHLEY: It's the right thing to do. And we see so many people with different stories but at the end of the day, we want to make them be more financially successful and give them the tools to do that.
KORRY: According to the league's Clifford Johnson, cities themselves are important bank customers and they should use their financial clout to bring banks to the table.
CLIFFORD JOHNSON: We are convinced that city leaders have key leverage, you know, have key roles to play.
KORRY: Elaine Korry, NPR News, San Francisco.