NEW YORK CITY — New York City comptroller Scott Stringer plans to reach out to all the banks that currently do not accept IDNYC as primary identification for those seeking to open an account — days after DNAinfo revealed that advocates are concerned about the lack of participating banks in heavily immigrant areas.
Stringer released a report earlier this year showing that less than one-third of financial institutions in the city accept the municipal Identification card introduced in January as a valid form of primary identification; that number doesn't include major chains such as Chase and Citibank.
"This policy prevents many of the more than 800,000 unbanked New Yorkers from securing bank accounts, harming their ability to save and leaving them vulnerable to high fees," Stringer said in a statement Wednesday. "My office will be contacting every bank that does not accept IDNYC to discuss what steps they are taking to change their policy."
Advocates have argued that the limited number of banks that accept the municipal ID as primary identification poses a significant barrier to New Yorkers seeking affordable and accessible financial services — particularly undocumented immigrants, whom Mayor Bill de Blasio vowed to serve when he introduced the ID earlier this year.
The program had a stated goal of providing hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers with city services they couldn't access without proof of their identity, including banking privileges.
Access to such services protects consumers from costly alternative financial services like cash-checking and affords them lending opportunities to grow their savings.
Undocumented immigrants who have no consulate cards or valid passports are especially hamstrung by the reluctance of many banks to accept the IDNYC as identification. Few of the financial institutions that do accept the card are located in neighborhoods with significant immigrant populations, as this map shows.
Banking giants that have so far declined to take municipal IDs attribute their decision to the risks of doing so, as articulated by federal regulators over the summer."We focus on fewer IDs to reduce possible error, fraud, operational risk," a Chase official told DNAinfo.
As a New York Times article published a day after DNAinfo's story pointed out, big banks have in recent years paid hundred of million of dollars in fines after investigations found they had failed to adequately keep terrorist and illegal drug money out of their branches.
In addition to calling banks that do not so far accept IDNYC, Stringer's office will update its guide to affordable checking options in New York, "Take It to the Bank," for banks that change their policies, a spokesperson for the comptroller told DNAinfo on Wednesday.