October 6, 2006- Latino
bank backers christen their creation
Triangle Business Journal
by Lee
Weisbecker
Steve
Wilson
David Flores says the name reflects the mission.
RALEIGH - The premiere branch
of the state's first bank founded to serve Latino customers would
open in Garner under the name "Nuestro
Banco," which means Our Bank.
Although Chief Executive Officer
David Flores is still working on raising the capital needed to
open the doors, he's moving ahead with key decisions and aiming
for a launch in the second quarter of 2007.
He says Garner actually was targeted
as the location of the bank's second office. He hopes to put
the headquarters in proximity to the Mexican consulate, which
is now on Six Forks Road in Raleigh. Because consulate officials
are contemplating moving their operations to a building with
more space, Flores can't at this time pinpoint where Nuestro
Banco's headquarters will be.
Consulate officials declined to
comment about their space needs or potential new sites.
"So
we have decided to open the bank's second office first," says
Flores, a former Chase Manhattan executive. He and a group of
local and regional backers selected the Triangle for the bank
because of the large population of Latino workers and the region's
growing economy.
Organizers are still waiting on
North Carolina Commissioner of Banks Joe Smith to set the starting
capital requirements for the endeavor. Their Raleigh attorney,
Tony Gaeta, says from $10 million to $11 million would be typical
for a community bank. But because Nuestro Banco would be an institution
serving an untested customer base, the capital baseline is expected
to be in the $12 million to $15 million range.
Gaeta says organizers expect that,
in the early stages anyway, deposits and, therefore, loans would
grow slowly. Even so, the bank would attempt to make commercial
loans.
What probably wouldn't lag, however,
is the bank's income from service fees - most notably, money
transmittal fees. Roughly 20 percent of after-tax income earned
by Latinos in the United States is transferred across borders
to friends and relatives.
"It's a different kind of
business plan," Gaeta says. "But they
(state regulators) have said they are becoming more comfortable
with it."
Over time, further expansion,
both Gaeta and Flores have said, would come in the state's other
metropolitan markets, including Charlotte, that also have large
and growing Latino populations.
Across the state, existing banks,
both large and small, have been reaching out to attract Latino
customers with initiatives such as hiring Spanish-speaking employees
and offering low- or no-cost money transfers.
People's Bank of Newton, north
of Charlotte, took its efforts a step further by opening branch
offices crafted to serve Latino clients. What the state hasn't
seen, until now, has been a move to start a bank devoted solely
to the Latino community.
Flores says the name, Nuestro
Banco, was tested before at least 160 people before it was
adopted. "We think it says what we are
trying to create," he says
