Reaching and Serving Hispanics in the Alternative Financial Industry

“About 56 million Americans do not have a banking relationship. Fifty percent of that figure is comprised of Hispanics and they spend an estimated ten billion dollars annually on non banking services. This includes check cashing, money wiring, prepaid cards, bill payments and money orders. According to Blaire Borthayre, author of Marketing to Hispanics: A Guide for the Alternative Financial Service Industry, there is an unfair perception that all of the alternative services are predatory. “As an Hispanic advocate, I educated and preached about the importance of bank accounts for years until I finally realized that sometimes unbanked clients have reasons for remaining unbanked that go beyond lack of information.”

Some of the reasons include fear of the bank questioning their immigration status, no Spanish speakers on staff, and lack of sufficient funds to open and maintain an account. “As I began looking into the alternative financial services industry, I realized that I was stereotyping the entire industry based on what I had heard. What I found was a much more regulated business that is providing services to people who would be turned away by others. Are there unscrupulous companies? Sure and that is true in every consumer based business but you cannot brand an entire industry based on those companies.”"

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