Top Retail Banks Improve Outreach to Spanish-Speaking Consumers

Over the past several years, 71% of the nation’s largest online and click-and-mortar banks have added foreign language content to their public websites, providing important product information and services in Spanish for the approximately 45 million Hispanic Americans living in the United States. The addition of this content should spark greater interest in these firms’ deposit products and services and offer opportunities for growth, a key objective given today’s challenging business conditions in the retail banking industry.

“Recent immigrants to the United States are often identified as ‘under-banked,’ which is unsurprising since most banking information and services have traditionally been offered almost exclusively in English,” explained Doug Miller, Senior Analyst for Banking and Cards at Corporate Insight. “As the Spanish-speaking population of this country has grown in both size and affluence, top retail banks have come to recognize the importance of serving this group through Spanish language site content, customer service support and account statements.”

In its latest study on Foreign Language Services, Corporate Insight was impressed by the efforts of a few banks that go beyond the basics to provide advanced web-based features to Spanish speakers.

* Bank of America and Citibank received top grades for their foreign language banking services and are currently the only banks to offer clients a fully functional Spanish private site.
* Wells Fargo and FifthThird are the only firms that offer Spanish Help Centers that assist customers with navigating the website and answer online banking questions.
* Wachovia and Wells Fargo offer Spanish language account applications, allowing consumers to open bank accounts online without having to navigate an English language form.
* Chase and Wachovia enable clients to change to their account statements to Spanish via a private site tool.
* E*TRADE Bank, National City and HSBC provide over-the-counter phone translation services for a vast number of foreign languages, though they do not offered dedicated non-English customer service numbers.

Corporate Insight currently provides a comprehensive selection of syndicated research to 90% of the top financial services companies within the Fortune 500, representing 70% of the brokerage industry and 60% of US banking assets. Its expert analysts compile highly detailed research audits that deliver a unique, firsthand understanding of financial product offerings and websites. All research is compiled through personal interaction with each website. To view the foreign language services report abstract please follow this link.

Further information from Corporate Insight is available at www.corporateinsight.com. You may also access Corporate Insight’s blog here.
Contacts

For Corporate Insight
Stephanie DiIorio, 212-754-5181
sdiiorio@intermarket.com
or
Loren Macchiaroli, 212-754-5468
lmacchiaroli@intermarket.com“

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