Indigo Financiera

Why Hispanics Don't Use Banks - Part 2

 

In my work on Indigo and  m-Via, I often run into the received wisdom that Hispanics don't trust banks. It has become the catch-all reason to explain product failures in financial services. Why did Bank of America withdraw their SafeSend product? Well, you know, Hispanics just don't trust banks. The other assumption is that, 'well, Hispanic immigrants aren't very financially literate.' If they were smarter, it would be obvious to use banks. And while there is an element of truth to both assumptions, it doesn't tell the whole story and it may cause you to give up too soon. After all, it's much easier to blame the customer than to acknowledge that your product design or market strategy was in error.

A Matter of Dignity

Recently a friend shared a recent banking experience.  My friend, Clara,  is an undocumented worker who makes her living cleaning houses.  Her current employer is a wealthy woman with an 8 bedroom mansion in an exclusive suburb in Silicon Valley.   

Her employer recently paid her by check before leaving town.  Clara and her co-worker, the other cleaning woman (it takes two women to clean this house every week), went to the local bank from which the check was drawn thinking that would be the most efficient way to get their money.