FAIRFAX, Va. - Fairfax County FCU is connecting with the area’s growing Hispanic population with a new “Cueneta Corriente Americana,” an American checking account that allows members to portray the flag of their home country on their checks.
Members win rewards points for check usage that they can redeem for wire transfers or money orders, according to Mathew Caudy, director of marketing for the $230 million credit union. The credit union plans to flag debit cards next.
The campaign is part of the credit union’s increased focus on this growing Hispanic market outside of Washington, which has led bilingual member service representatives and seven-day-a-week branch hours, all promoted on the local television affiliate of the Spanish-language Univision network, and El Zol radio.
“We’re kind of leaders in going after this market,” Caudy told the Credit Union Journal. Most of the Hispanics are immigrants from the Central American countries of Bolivia, Ecuador and El Salvador, or South America’s Peru.
The focus of the campaign, said Caudy, is to compare the home-town “cooperatives” in the members’ homelands with what they know about credit unions. “It’s really tied in to the whole campaign to emotionally connect with them,” he said.
