SANTA ANA, Calif. — In an attempt to better serve its Hispanicmembers, American First Credit Union has recently formed the LatinoCommunity Advisory Council.

Prominent Latino community and business leaders were invited toattend the council's inaugural meeting to provide valuable input oncreating and improving financial products and services for OrangeCounty's Latino community.

With the Hispanic community representing some 45% of OrangeCounty residents and a high Hispanic member base, the move tocreate a council developed some six months ago as a way to connectwith the community.

“We first talked about having a focus group but we wanted tobuild a real relationship within the community,” said AmericanFirst CU Assistant Vice President of Marketing Ryan Zilker. “Weparticularly hope to work together to offer alternatives for theunbanked that too often fall prey to check cashing stores andpaying ridiculous amounts of interest.”

Committee members include: 47th Congressional District ofCalifornia Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez; Hispanic Chamber ofCommerce Chairman Joel Ayala; Freddie Mac Housing and CommunityInvestments Expanding Markets Director Samuel Luna; DVA, Inc.President Rosalie Delgadillo; Orange County Fair Human ResourcesSupervisor Bianca Kulback; Orange County Fair Human ResourceSpecialist Deysi Figueroa; Big Canyon Country Club Golf CourseSuperintendent Jeff Beardsley; Chivas, USA Corporate Sales AccountExecutive Adolfo Romero; American First CU Branch Manger ChristineRodarte; Assistant Vice President Business Development Janet Rombi;and Business Development Manger Rafael Vargas.

By joining forces with community leaders, Zilker says the creditunion hopes to develop nontraditional products and services thatwill best meet the community's needs. So far plans are underway forthe council to meet at least three times a year.

According to findings in a new survey by CUNA, credit unions aredoing a good job reaching out to Hispanics, but can do more.

In a survey of 465 credit unions, 13% have a program in place orare in the process of starting a program, CUNA's Hispanic ResourceCenter Advisory survey reports.

One in four credit unions surveyed with more than $200 millionin assets had a program in place and another 15% plan to startone.

While credit unions overall spend an average of $31,469 to servethe Hispanic market, credit unions with more than $500 million inassets spend an average of nearly $105,000.

In addition, one in five credit unions surveyed currently hasbilingual staff available to serve this market. Large credit unionsaverage more than 20 bilingual staff members.

The survey also indicates that more than half of the creditunions with programs targeting the Hispanic market have offeredtheir programs for six years or longer.

When segmenting the survey findings by potential Hispanicmembership, two out of three credit unions either have a program inplace or are starting one when their membership potential is 40% ormore Hispanic.

Products and services areas likely to see the greatest growthinclude low-cost international remittance services, nonmember checkcashing services, and ads and articles in Spanish-language media.–[email protected]