With her startup, this entrepreneur is boosting people’s financial literacy and health

Around the world, tens of millions of people are unbanked, meaning that they don’t have a checking or savings account at a bank or credit union, or underbanked, meaning they have a bank account but also rely on payday loans, check cashing services, money orders, or pawn shop loans to take care of their finances.

In the United States alone, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) estimates that about 6 million people—4.5 percent of all U.S. households—were unbanked in 2021, the most recent year for which data are available. In the same survey, the FDIC found that about 19 million people, or 14 percent of households, were underbanked.

Beyond mere inconvenience, being un- or underbanked comes with a financial burden. Forbes reports that unbanked people “are forced to pay high fees for everyday financial services like check cashing and money orders.” In the U.S., it can cost anywhere from a few dollars to well over $10 to cash a check and up to $2 or more per money order. That adds up fast.

For people who are unbanked or underbanked, accessing credit can also be a daunting challenge. Non-bank credit options such as store layaway and payday loans often come with outrageously high interest fees, which can run up to the equivalent of 400 percent in some cases.

And trends in unbanked and underbanked populations show that the burdens fall disproportionately on communities that are already systemically marginalized in the U.S. The FDIC survey shows that “unbanked rates were higher among lower-income households, less-educated households, Black households, Hispanic households, working-age households with a disability, and single-mother households.”

For Claudia Tobar, an educator who graduated from Northeastern University’s College of Professional Studies in 2020, this issue hit home when she considered her own finances.

“I’ve always been an independent woman—I’ve worked since I was 18 and had my own money, but then managing my money or investing my money was not even my agenda,” she says.

In Tobar’s home country of Ecuador, roughly 35 percent of all households are unbanked, according to a 2021 survey by the World Bank, the most recent available. Tobar also saw it as an issue that disproportionately affects women—and the World Bank data backs her up. Women are less likely than men to be able to raise money to cover an emergency, and more likely to rely upon friends and family for money, according to the same survey.

“When you start to understand the social problem around money, and the psychological issues and the beliefs and the biases they feed into, then you understand that it’s a lot more than simply not knowing finance or not knowing how to manage your money,” Tobar says. “You start to understand that there can be a lot of abuse, a lot of control, a lot of sexism, when you don’t control your own money. And for me, when I started engaging that problem, I understood that this could be the root of so many other problems, too.”

So, when she was approached by an acquaintance about teaming up on a startup that could solve this crisis, she was all in.

She co-founded Kamina, a digital financial platform that provides advisory, access, and assessment support developed specifically for women and non-banked individuals. Kamina is designed to work with existing banks, incentivizing them to reach more customers. The platform can act as a financial roadmap, helping to educate people about their money while also making the money work harder for them.

“We believe that to change financial wellbeing, we need to change the regulatory, structural part of the laws that are involved. We need to change the way banks and financial institutions approach financial wellbeing. And then finally, we need to change financial behaviors in people,” Tobar says.

It’s the education piece that most speaks to Tobar, a longtime teacher.

“People don’t learn because you tell them to; people learn because you create environments for them to make errors, and give them feedback, and give them the opportunities to digest the information their own way. It’s no different with adults,” she says.

Tobar’s venture and her entrepreneurial spirit grabbed the attention of the judges for this year’s Northeastern University Women Who Empower Innovator Awards. The annual awards honor entrepreneurs for their innovative, boundary-pushing work. This year’s recipients—students and alumni from the Northeastern community—were selected by a panel of judges and will receive a total of $500,000 in funding. Tobar took second place among graduate alumnae award winners, and third place in the specialty category, “Powering Global Change.”

“Kamina fills a crucial gap in the market by addressing the lack of personalized, proactive financial prevention solutions,” says Carlos Montúfar, president of the board of regents at the  Universidad San Francisco de Quito. Tobar and Montúfar crossed paths at the university when Tobar was an educator there, and he remains among her mentors now.

“Many existing financial tools focus on wealth management or debt repayment, but few take a holistic approach to preventing financial crises before they occur,” Montúfar says. “Kamina specifically targets individuals who may not be in immediate financial distress but are at risk of falling into it due to poor financial habits, lack of education, or unforeseen circumstances.”

Tobar compares Kamina to Waze or Google Maps, for finances.

“It’s like a navigation system of your financial journey,” she says. “When you activate Kamina, you’re going to go faster; you’re going to avoid some traffic and get to your financial destination faster.”

So far, Tobar and her team have only been testing the platform in Ecuador. But after a recent round of fundraising, they plan to take Kamina international. Colombia and Mexico are likely their next markets, she says.