Wachovia Corp. is adding a Spanish flavor to its planned Texas expansion.
Three of the branches the $700 billion-asset company plans to open in Texas in the next year would feature Spanish as the primary language, according to Cece Sutton, Wachovia’s head of retail banking.
Though the Charlotte-based company already caters to Hispanics in other ways — it has bilingual tellers and a Spanish-language Internet site, and its mailings include statement stuffers in Spanish — English is still the dominant language at its Texas branches.
Spanish, however, is the primary language in many Texas communities, and Ms. Sutton said it makes business sense for Wachovia to include “Spanish-first” branches among the dozens it plans to open in Texas by the end of 2007.
Wachovia wants the Hispanic community to see it “as someone who cares about them and wants their business,” said Ms. Sutton said, who revealed Wachovia’s plan for the Spanish branches at the Consumer Bankers Association’s Small Business Conference in San Antonio last week.
As the trade group’s new chairman, Ms. Sutton gave the keynote address, and one thing she touched on was retail banks’ strategies in marketing to Hispanics.
The Hispanic population is exploding, especially in border states such as Texas.
In 2005, the Hispanic population in Texas was estimated to be 7.9 million, up from 6.7 million in 2000. Hispanics are 35.5% of the state’s population and 14.5% of the nation’s, according to the Census Bureau.
Wachovia would not be the first bank in Texas with branches where Spanish is the primary language. Woodforest Bank of The Woodlands has a Spanish-language branch in a Hispanic grocery store, and Libertad Bank, a state savings bank that opened in early 2006, is targeting Hispanics in Austin.
And Wells Fargo & Co. of San Francisco has Hispanic branches in El Paso and Austin, as well as Los Angeles and other markets with large Hispanic populations.
Ms. Sutton said Wachovia plans to use surveys and focus groups to help it decide how to design the branches to make them more inviting to Hispanics. Marketing ideas it is considering include having Spanish radio stations broadcast from the new branches, she said.
Wachovia entered Texas in 2004 and has been expanding there at a good clip. It added 64 branches from July 1, 2005 to June 30, 2006, according to Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. data, and Ms. Sutton said it plans to maintain that pace in 2007. About half of all the branches Wachovia builds will be in Texas, she said.
Ms. Sutton said moving in on the Texas market first became an ambition after Guy Bodine, who runs the Texas region for Wachovia, took her on a helicopter ride to show her the area.
“I just couldn’t believe what I saw,” she said. “House after house, subdivision after subdivision being built. It was like a banker’s dream.”
As of June 30, Wachovia had $3.2 billion of the Texas deposits, a share of 0.81%. That was up 68% from midyear 2005, when its deposits of $1.9 billion gave it a share of 0.54%.
