Ill. Start-Up to Hire Bilingual Staff

A new bank planned for the southern suburbs of Chicago wants to make sure its employees and customers are speaking the same language-even if it is not English.

First Personal Bank, which applied for an Illinois charter last month, said it intends to hire employees who speak Lithuanian, Polish, or Spanish to serve Orland Park's ethnic customer base.

"We want our customers to be able to do business in their first language," said Randall R. Schwartz, who would be the new bank's chairman and president.

The plan to attract some bilingual staff members reflects First Personal's commitment to old-fashioned banking-something that has been lost through industry consolidation, Mr. Schwartz said.

In the past few years, the southern suburbs have been at the center of banking consolidation in the Chicago area. Mr. Schwartz had been vice president and general counsel of Standard Federal when it was sold to Minneapolis-based TCF Financial Co. last year.

First Personal's organizers plan to raise $7 million of start-up capital by yearend through a private stock placement. They hope to open the bank in February.

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