Public Policy Blog
Arkansas and Mississippi Participate in America Saves Week
Arkansas and Mississippi are encouraging their residents to take the pledge to save and build long-term wealth during America Saves Week (February 26 – March 3). Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson recently proclaimed this same week to be Arkansas Saves Week and Military...
How We Define Savings
By Kathryn Hazelett I’ve been thinking a lot about savings over the past few months as I’ve worked on this blog and on other papers for Southern. I realized that I generally divide savings into three categories. We save for college (ours, our student loans, and our...
Southern Bancorp Statement on Recently Announced CFPB Rule Change Affecting Payday Lenders
Little Rock, Ark. – Southern Bancorp, a Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) with operations in Arkansas and Mississippi, announced its opposition to this week’s proposed Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) rule change that would remove...
The direct benefits of direct deposit
A couple of weeks ago, we touched on the importance of having both a checking and a savings account. We mentioned that having your money in two separate places was key to seeing it grow. But what we didn't touch on was the way your money gets into those accounts in...
Saving Time and Money at Tax Time
As we continue talking about tax time and ways to save, one thing that we’ve left out of the conversation is the complexity we all face when trying to fill out our tax forms. We have to gather up all of our documents (most of which don’t arrive at the same time) and...
Checking vs Savings: The Showdown
We’ve recently written about two ways to help folks save more at tax time. One is to split your tax refund – put some of your refund into a savings account and some into a checking account; the other is to be encouraged to “pledge to save” before even doing your...