This is a pretty interesting business model on the part of the banks. Banks have realized that poor people don't have enough money for their deposits to cover the risk of overdraft or customer service. Their solution to this is to list poor people with a credit reporting agency for checking accounts named Chexsystems. Once you're listed in chexsystems a bank can close out your account, and you are effectively blacklisted from the banking system in the united states. You can still cash checks under a certain amount at the issuing bank, but they put up a ton of roadblocks to make it difficult, adding so much friction that people end up going to these check cashing establishments where the banks get to keep 3-5% of their income. The best part of this is that the poor have no recourse because they're poor. It's a brilliant, if unethical, business model.