Asian-Americans on both coasts are seeking to start up ethnically owned banks in New Jersey and California that will cater not only to minorities, but also to underserved mainstream markets.
In Northern California, organizers of Asiana Bank are hoping to open the first Korean-owned bank based in the Bay Area to meet the needs of the burgeoning but underserved Korean and Vietnamese communities.
Meanwhile, across the country in central New Jersey, a Chinese-American group is raising $6 million in capital to start United Heritage Bank. The Edison-based bank would be geared to serve the mainstream community despite a minority ownership of at least 50%.
The two moves are signs that minority banks are no longer gearing themselves just toward the minority communities that founded them.
Organizers of Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Asiana want to target the international banking needs of individuals and small businesses within the Korean and Vietnamese communities of the Bay Area.
But despite its immigrant-based ownership, officials plan to serve the mainstream local communities as well. As if to emphasize that, officials are seeking a chief executive who is not part of one of the ethnic groups.
"This is a community bank in the Silicon Valley area," said organizer and director Harry H. Kim, a local accountant who used to work for Crocker National Bank before its 1986 purchase by Wells Fargo. "We're not saying it's a Korean or Vietnamese bank. This is a community bank for the entire community, but the major shareholders are Korean or Vietnamese people."
The plan to open Asiana comes as the Korean and Vietnamese communities in Northern California have exploded over the past few years. Since 1990, the number of Koreans in the Santa Clara market has increased 70%, to 85,000, while the number of Vietnamese has surged 50%, to 150,000.
Mr. Kim said the Bay Area now has 248 Korean churches, 690 Korean-owned dry cleaners, and at least 158 Korean grocers. And Santa Clara County actually has the second-largest Asian population per county in the United States, behind Los Angeles County, he said.
But while their brethren in Southern California have nine Korean-owned community banks to choose from, the two communities in the greater San Francisco area have only a branch of Los Angeles-based California Korea Bank, a subsidiary of South Korea's Korean Exchange Bank.
Mr. Kim said that California Korea branch in San Francisco has drawn in immigrant customers from as far away as Sacramento and Modesto, as much as two hours away. And Asiana officials think the same will happen with their bank, especially since it will be closer to some of those markets.
"It's probably a good start," said Michael Abrahams, senior bank analyst at Sutro & Co. in San Francisco. "A lot of the Koreans probably don't speak English well and don't understand American banking."
Officials are hoping to open the bank in April, after raising about $6 million in capital.
In New Jersey, United Heritage organizers want to fill a gap by becoming the only locally owned bank in the Edison area. About a dozen other banks compete there, but the last one owned locally was bought up several years ago, said chairman Jack Kung.
Mr. Kung said the bank will serve local small to medium-size businesses, professional firms, and individuals who "are not being catered to properly by the larger super banks."
"This is a business opportunity that we see. It's definitely a void, a niche to be filled right here," he said. "It just happens that a group of people with Asian heritage got together. But it's a bank for all people."
Mr. Kung said the bank's senior management team is already comprised of non-Asians, and the board will be equally split among Asian and non-Asians. Officials hope to open by March or April.
