The industry wide thinking is that most people who use check cashing or pre-paid cards were making a big mistake; banking executives believe check cashing and pre-paid cards are a lot more expensive than bank accounts, but the reality shows a different picture altogether; University of Pennsylvania Professor Lisa Servon wanted to understand why the check cashing industry was such big business and why people were using these services instead of banks; what she found was, if you factor in account fees and overdraft charges, banking was more expensive for people living paycheck to paycheck; these individuals were consciously making the choice to not use banks and she found that there were three main reasons for this trend: cost, transparency and service.  Source