More initiatives are being aimed at getting the “unbanked” to open bank accounts. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) recently approved a pilot program that encourages banks to offer deposit accounts with low costs. The idea is to get lower income people who rely on check cashing services to open savings and checking accounts with banks.

The FDIC program hopes to encourage banks to offer safe accounts with features that would attract people who have lower incomes, such as a $1 minimum balance requirement. “Access to mainstream financial services at a federally insured institution provides consumers with a safe place to keep their money and conduct basic financial transactions affordably. Such access can also help consumers build a credit history, access credit on favorable terms, and work toward financial security,” FDIC Chairman Sheila C. Bair said in a statement.

About 17 million adults in the U.S. rely on check cashing services, such as payday lenders, according to the Wall Street Journal. Payday lenders are notorious for charging exorbitant rates of interest that can climb past 300% annual percentage yield (APY). But many of the unbanked also cash checks at places like grocery or liquor stores that charge a fee per transaction. Approximately 21 million people in the U.S. are considered “underbanked.” These people have checking accounts but still use services such as payday lenders or car title lenders.

The Aug. 15 deadline is looming to choose whether or not to use your bank’s overdraft protection plan, and it appears that many banks are doing whatever they can to get customers to opt-in. The Center for Responsible Lending found that many banks are pressuring customers to opt-in to overdraft coverage.

In many cases, banks are targeting customers who frequently overdraw their accounts. Low-income individuals, people of color, and renters are more likely to be aggressively targeted by banks trying to get them to opt-in. Some banks are even providing inadequate or misleading information to consumers, such as failing to disclose lower-cost alternatives to overdraft fees.

According to the report, “Some financial institutions have adopted this targeted marketing approach. A credit union in Iowa, for example, is offering incentive-based pay to employees who can identify accountholders who have overdrawn their accounts when they walk into a branch and then convince them to opt in to debit card overdraft coverage.”

Consumers have received a variety of mailings, emails, phone calls, and other communications about overdraft protection plans. Some of the communications fail to inform banking customers of all their options, such as the fact that they can choose to have debit card transactions declined if they don’t have enough money in a checking account to cover them.

Cybercrime against banking customers has become so prevalent that banks are asking people to help prevent theft. According to a USA Today article:

The banking industry wants consumers to monitor their online accounts for unauthorized transactions on a “continuous, almost daily, basis,” says Doug Johnson, the [American Banking Association's] vice president of risk-management policy. That’s because PCs and smartphones have become “the online bank branch for a lot of individuals,” he says. “The customer needs to really recognize that security is most effective when they work in partnership with their financial institution.”

Cyberattacks originate from a variety of sources around the world. At the end of 2009, there were 65,098 Trojans, up from 4,295 at the beginning of the year, that were designed to steal from online bank accounts.

The best thing you can do to keep online savings accounts and checking accounts safe is to guard your information and never reveal passwords to other individuals. Don’t be fooled by emails that instruct you to provide personal information such as social security numbers and passwords.

Phishing attempts via email are rampant and you should always ignore them. If you need to contact your bank regarding  a savings, checking, or other account, go to the official website or call the official phone number for customer service.

Many banks offer safe deposit boxes for customers, who use them to squirrel away jewelry, savings bonds, stock certificates, insurance policies, coins, and other important documents and keepsakes. You can put whatever you want in a safe deposit box so the sky is the limit.

You keep a key and the bank keeps a key. Both keys are required to open a box. In the event of an emergency, banks can drill open safe deposit boxes. Also, there have been cases where thieves have opened safe deposit boxes to get at the contents.

Whether you want to put your savings bonds, cash, or other valuables in a safe deposit box is up to you. It’s also up to you to insure any contents of a safe deposit box against theft or disaster. Banks have a policy of not asking about safe deposit box contents, so bank employees can’t back up your claims of missing or damaged items.

Stay current on the fee for renting a safe deposit box. If you fall behind, after a certain amount of time, the box gets opened. The contents may be kept for a period of time but once that period has passed, whatever unclaimed items were in the box can end up on the auction block.

Seven more banks were closed by regulators, bringing the total for this year to 103. The bank failures occurred even as many banks reported improved second-quarter earnings. The bank failures are expected to cost the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) insurance fund $431 million, according to the Wall Street Journal. The seven latest banks to fail are:

• Home Valley Bank, based in Cave Junction, OR. South Valley Bank & Trust of Klamath Falls entered into an agreement with the FDIC to assume all of Home Valley Bank’s deposits.
• SouthwestUSA Bank, based Las Vegas, NV. Plaza Bank of Irvine, CA will assume all of SoutwestUSA Bank’s deposits.
• Community Security Bank, based in New Prague, MN.  Roundbank, based in Waseca will assume all of Community Security Bank’s deposits.
• Thunder Bank, based in Sylvan Grove, KS. The Bennington State Bank, Salina is assuming  Thunder Bank’s deposits.
• Williamsburg First National Bank, based in Kingstree, SC.
• Crescent Bank and Trust Co., based in Jasper, GA. First Citizens Bank and Trust Co., Columbia, SC, is assuming Crescent Bank and Trust’s deposits.
• Sterling Bank, based in Lantana, FL.  IberiaBank of Lafayette, LA, is assuming Sterling Bank’s deposits.

If your FDIC-insured bank is on the list of failed banks, your money should be safe up to $250,000.