Transforming himself from boxer to businessman, Oscar De La Hoya has promoted fights, invested in Spanish-language newspapers and even bought and sold the Madison Avenue building in Manhattan that houses Barneys New York. He and the deep-pocketed backers of his Golden Boy Enterprises are considering a tequila-bottling project as well.
But first, the son of Mexican immigrants plans to take another stride into the economic mainstream by opening a business bank for Latinos in Greater Los Angeles.
Dozens of Asian American banks have sprung up in Southern California, and 14 Latino-owned banks serve Florida's large ethnic Cuban population. But for decades the Los Angeles area has had only one bank owned by local Latino investors.
"It's mind-boggling that there is just one bank," said De La Hoya, who defeated Ricardo Mayorga in May to win the World Boxing Council super-welterweight title. "The fact is that there are over 80,000 Hispanic-owned businesses in Los Angeles. We feel it is a tremendous opportunity."
Others share the sentiment, including three groups that recently asked for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.'s blessing to open Latino-owned banks in the region -- Fortis Business Bank in Santa Ana, Americas United Bank in Glendale and Promerica Bank in downtown Los Angeles. Several other Latino banking ventures also are in the works, industry consultants say.
The flurry of start-ups underlines the fact that for generations, Latinos in Southern California have had few homegrown financial institutions. Industry analysts and Latino entrepreneurs cite several reasons, including the small size of many Latino businesses, their wide dispersal, and widespread distrust of banks by immigrants from Mexico and Central America.
Organizers of the Latino banks say that they intend to be more flexible than large banks in making loans, and that a shared culture will help them better understand customers. They say misunderstandings, rigid lending policies and plain intimidation at big banks have resulted at times in Latinos being denied credit unfairly. Some turned to higher-cost finance companies for loans because they seem friendlier and more personalized.
"The big banks do scare Latinos," said Carmen Saenz Murray, who owns a City of Commerce-based company that manufactures custom carpets, mostly for corporate offices. The attitude of the large banks "is almost degrading -- they're wearing their suits and you're almost intimidated about going in and asking for a loan or a line of credit."
