Financial Empowerment Fund: unbanked and underbanked populations.

Existing law establishes the Department of Business Oversight, which is responsible for the administration and enforcement of regulations on the activities of various financial entities, including commercial banks, industrial banks, trust companies, credit unions, and savings and loan associations. Existing law requires specified fees, reimbursements, assessments, and other moneys collected by the Division of Corporations within the department to be deposited into the State Corporations Fund for specified purposes. This bill would, until January 1, 2025, require the department to provide grants of up to $100,000 to specified nonprofits for financial education and financial empowerment programs and services to unbanked and underbanked populations in the state, and would authorize the department to award up to $1,000,000 in grant moneys per fiscal year. The bill would appropriate the sum of $4,000,000 plus reasonable administrative costs, as estimated by the department, from the State Corporations Fund to the Financial Empowerment Fund, established in the State Treasury by the bill, and would continuously appropriate the moneys in the fund to the department for purposes of the program.