Eastern International Bank Tries to Shed ‘Chinese-Only’ Image : Marketing: Eastern International Bank in Alhambra is targeting the Latino community, which is growing fast in the big Asian neighborhood.
In the Alhambra branch of Eastern International Bank, signs of its Chinese roots are everywhere.
Bright red posters with Chinese characters adorn the walls. Tellers and customers freely converse in Mandarin, Cantonese and Fujianese, the dialect spoken in Fujian province and Taiwan.
Outside, restaurants, bookstores and grocery stores line a busy stretch of Valley Boulevard in the western San Gabriel Valley, a haven for one of the nation’s fastest-growing Chinese-American communities.
Now, however, Eastern International wants to shed its reputation as a “Chinese-only” bank and is targeting another community: the area’s burgeoning Latino population.
The 5-year-old institution that thrived on a heavy growth of immigrants from Taiwan and Hong Kong in the 1980s is smack in the middle of a diverse community of second- and third-generation Mexican-Americans and recent immigrants from Central and South America.
In fact, Latinos constitute the largest ethnic group within a five-mile radius of Eastern’s two branches in Alhambra and Chinatown, according to a recent marketing study conducted for the bank by Woodland Hills-based Terry Utterback & Associates.
“Asians and Latinos make up 80% of the market,” said Glenn H. Yee, Eastern’s president and chief executive. “Why concentrate on just half?”
Frank Medina, executive director of the Latin Business Assn., put it more bluntly: “They’re in the heart of East L.A. They wouldn’t be able to survive” without Latino customers.
To be sure, larger mainstream businesses in Southern California and nationwide--from car manufacturers to department stores to utilities--are increasingly realizing that they must provide multilingual or culturally sensitive services to gain a competitive edge.
But Eastern and a few other minority-owned businesses have realized that the importance of cross-ethnic marketing applies to them as well, especially in communities where Latinos, Asians, blacks or whites live close together. Some experts say Asian businesses catering to a Latino community could be successful because the two groups share some common cultural traits, such as saving for their children’s educations and an aggressive resolve to make it in this country.
Yee, 45, born in Canton and fluent in Mandarin and Cantonese, admits that he’s no expert on the Latino market. So, he has brought an expert on board: John Hernandez, a Rowland Heights advertising, marketing and public relations consultant whom Yee met when he placed an advertisement in the Latin Business Assn. newsletter.
In a recent interview in Yee’s Alhambra office, the two men talked about ways to reach the Latino population: advertisements in the Spanish-language news media, direct-mail campaigns to families with Latino surnames and recruiting more Spanish-speaking employees. Currently, two of the bank’s 45 employees speak Spanish.
Community involvement will be a top priority, Yee said. In January, Eastern joined the Latin Business Assn., becoming the first Chinese-owned financial institution to be a member, Medina said. The bank also donated $1,000 in scholarship money to the Latin Business Foundation.
“Chinese in the past were not known to join too many things, as opposed to Westerners, who join everything,” he said. “We want to let the community know we are very much interested to serve them in any way we can.”
However, Yee acknowledged that with only $84 million in deposits, Eastern International Bank is taking a chance in venturing outside its niche in the Asian community. Eastern was founded as a savings and loan institution, and recently converted to a commercial bank.
And Yee emphasized that he did not want to alienate either his customers or his Chinese banker peers. “These are uncharted waters,” he said. “I don’t want to get across the idea we’re abandoning the Chinese. The Chinese community is very small. We all know each other.”
Larger Chinese banks have approached the Latino market with caution. Cathay Bank, with $560 million in deposits and six branches, advertises in Spanish publications and has five to 10 Spanish-speakers among its 300 employees, said Dunson Cheng, president and chief executive. Still, he said, “at this point in time the customer base is more Chinese and Southeast Asian immigrant.”
William Lau, first vice president and savings administrator for First Public Savings Bank, said an ideal customer base for his bank’s Chinatown, Alhambra and Monterey Park branches would be “half-half” Asian and non-Asian. But, he conceded, that may be hard to achieve.
“Customers look at us and see all Orientals, then don’t come in at all,” Lau said, adding that Asians still constitute 90% of the 11-year-old bank’s clientele. “It’s undeniable; we’re an Oriental bank. When we advertised for a secretary and a teller for a couple of weeks, only Orientals applied.”
Another executive, Kellogg Chan of San Marino-based East-West Federal Bank, said: “I don’t have that same problem as other Chinese banks, being perceived as Chinese. We have made loans to blacks, Hispanics, Caucasians. I don’t target a specific ethnic group.”
Latino-owned banks, meanwhile, are concentrating on serving their own communities and would find it difficult to compete against mainstream banks for non-Latino customers, Medina said. “Right now, because there are larger institutions in the area with more resources available to them, the Latino bank owner will market specifically to (Latinos),” Medina said. “It’s safer and easier to deal with in the beginning. Once they get themselves established, they can venture into other areas.”
East Los Angeles-based Pan American Bank, which also has branches in Santa Ana and Whittier, hires Spanish-speaking tellers, loan officers and supervisors to serve its 90% Latino clientele, said Lupe Gomez, an assistant cashier.
Yee said his bank’s experience in catering to Chinese immigrants will be an advantage with Latinos. For example, he is considering establishing a college fund account for families to set aside money for their children’s education, a service that would be equally appealing to Asians and Latinos, he said.
Hernandez agreed. “For Latinos, education is extremely important,” he said. “They have very many of the same kinds of motivations and characteristics the Chinese have. Other mainstream banks may not be prepared to do that.”
Yee said, “I told my son, there are two languages to learn: Chinese and Spanish. . . . Then you’ll cover three-fourths of the globe.”
