A few years ago, the management team of a credit union located in a city's urban area noticed that many surrounding banks shut down their offices and opened branches in the suburbs, which provided more potential for reaching wealthy customers.

The credit union's management team debated whether this might be the right move for them as well, but ultimately decided against it for two reasons:

Once the credit union realized their desire to help Hispanics in the area, they hired Coopera Consulting to develop and implement strategies to reach the Hispanic community. The results were phenomenal: within two years, the credit union experienced a 150 percent growth in Hispanic membership with an increase of 20.7 percent in their overall membership.

While the success of the credit union made management very happy, they were surprised to find that 25 percent of their new members belonged to other minority and immigrant communities, even though they specifically targeted the Hispanic market.

Serving the underserved Hispanic community created a level of empathy, open-mindedness and cultural awareness among the credit union's staff, resulting in word-of-mouth to spread throughout the community. In fact, the increased awareness and sensitivity of the credit union's staff resulted in staff members who were more fulfilled by their jobs because they felt they were making a difference in peoples' lives. The compassion displayed towards the Hispanic community, when similarly displayed towards other communities, attracted more members to the credit union.

This credit union not only became a trusted advisor to the Hispanic community, but to its entire field of membership. The tactics they used to serve the Hispanics, and their willingness to adapt to the market, created a cultural understanding that resulted in a blossoming, dependable credit union. It is a story of a credit union reinventing itself by getting in touch once again with the principle upon which it was founded - people helping people.

Coopera is now featured on Credit Union Magazine's Credit Union Experts online. View our most recent video blog posting regarding "The Ideal Credit Union Member" and be sure to check back frequently for updates!

Last month, the World Council of Credit Unions (WOCCU) hosted a webinar titled "Reaching the Hispanic Market through Remittances." The webinar featured three Iowa credit unions who shared their experiences in reaching out to the Hispanic market through the remittance product - Vigo. 
 
Attendees were able to learn from their credit union peers about how they developed and provided tailored products and services to meet the unique needs of their Hispanic members.

Webinar discussion topics included acceptable forms of identification, specifics on loan products tailored for the Hispanic community, successful marketing techniques and ways to track member outreach.

A 32-page WOCCU report, also called "Reaching the Hispanic Market through Remittances," details the three credit unions' experiences and guiding principles to attract Hispanic membership through remittance programs. The free report also includes a sample business plan and tracking worksheets.

The two-hour archived webinar also is available online.