Building Assets, Building Credit:
A Symposium on Improving Financial Services
in Low-Income Communities

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The Building Assets, Building Credit symposium was sponsored by the Ford Foundation, Freddie Mac and the Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation and held at Harvard in November of 2003. The focus was on financial services as a gateway to homeownership with a particular focus on the role of savings, transaction accounts, short-term credit providers, and credit scores in impeding or facilitating asset accumulation. Twenty two papers were presented for discussion by academics, advocates, industry representatives and government regulators. The two day symposium ended with a roundtable discussion of the key issues raised by the papers and related debate.