Maryland Association of Financial Service Centers

The Maryland Assoc. of Financial Service Centers, Inc. (MAFSC), formerly the Maryland Check Cashers Association, was formed in 1989 to represent and promote businesses that provided check cashing services in Maryland. Since check cashing was unregulated until the Maryland Check Cashing Services Law was enacted in 1999, the association was informal and primarily a networking vehicle for those in the industry. After the 9/11 attacks, the Federal government became more vigilant in overseeing businesses that conducted cash transactions and check cashing businesses were classified as Money Service Businesses and required to register with the U.S. Treasury Dept. In addition, many banks discontinued doing business with check cashers under misguided regulatory pressure that wrongly identified check cashers as high risk for money laundering. With these significant changes to our industry, MAFSC reinvented itself several years ago to become a more pro-active, service oriented association to meet the ever increasing challenges of our business.

Today our stores are the Financial Service Centers of choice for a significant segment of the population who are not adequately served by the banking system. Our detractors claim that we are not mainstream and people only use our services that have no other choice, but we know we do provide mainstream services to our customers and the vast majority of our customers make a deliberate choice to use us instead of going to a bank. Our members are dedicated to serving our customers by agreeing to abide by MAFSC’s Code of Conduct.

Our industry faces many challenges and only collectively through a strong association can we hope to face these challenges. For more information about MAFSC, click here. Help protect your business and join MAFSC now.