D2D Fund

The Promise of IDAs

One promising development in social policy in the past decade has been the introduction of Individual Development Accounts (IDAs): matched-savings accounts for lower income families earmarked for the purchase of a significant asset, such as a home. Since the first IDA programs appeared at community organizations in the mid 1990s, the IDA field has grown through pilot and demonstration programs into a network of more than 500 programs serving more than 50,000 account holders nationwide. Proponents of asset development programs are working hard for passage of large-scale federal legislation to provide public funds to match savings by the poor.

The Challenges of Scaling IDAs

While public funding for asset building programs is a critical ingredient for continued growth in the IDA field, funding alone will not ensure a thriving market of individual asset-building accounts for low-income families. Big challenges remain, including the relatively high current cost to deliver IDAs and the need to serve as many as an estimated 40 million IDA-eligible households. If individual asset building accounts are to becoming a universal and permanent part of the American social landscape, great strides must be made in efficiency, reach and public funding for these accounts.

Online IDA – an answer?

To address the problems of efficiency and reach, D2D Fund with its partner, SunGard Employee Benefit Systems, developed Online IDA, a web-based IDA recordkeeping and financial transaction system. Online IDA was operated for over three years in a series of beta tests to demonstrate its efficacy and improve its performance. Online IDA is a complex recordkeeping system with notable features and benefits. Results of pilot tests demonstrated system feasibility and participant comfort with saving online.