Originally Posted by TrustCash

"Aurelio Leonel Alvarez-Rosales earns about $300 a week painting houses in the sprawling suburbs north of Atlanta. He lives paycheck to paycheck and often has nothing left over at the end of each week. So on Friday nights, when Alvarez-Rosales, 21, goes to cash his check, he pulls into the parking lot at the Norcross branch of Banuestra, an alternative financial institution aimed at serving the estimated 40 million adults in the U.S. without bank accounts. For him, every dollar counts, and compared with the 24-hour Atlanta Check Cashers outlet down the road, which charges a 3% fee to cash a payroll check, Banuestra is a bargain, taking just 1%, or $3, out of his weekly pay. He doesn't even consider the Wachovia bank across the street on Jimmy Carter Boulevard. It closes too early, and more important, makes potential customers like Alvarez-Rosales jump through too many hoops to get service.