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In efforts to expand its minority outreach, a Texas-based bank recently opened services in Springfield, Va. The United Central Bank, located on 6400 Brandon Avenue, aims at moving and keeping pace with the area’s growing Asian American population.

Uprooted from around Texas and around the world, the staff members cater to more than 24 different language groups.

“We have a lot of Asian communities in this area,” said Nasrullah Khan, Executive Vice President and regional manager. “We wanted to come in and provide support. To do this, we mainly hired people who are bilingual in languages such as Chinese, Taiwanese, Korean, Spanish, Vietnamese, Hindi, Urdu, Indian and Pakistani. It’s was a big challenge.”

With more Asians in small businesses, Khan said their bank is a necessity when dealing with cultural barriers. The group targets owners of grocery stores, motels, small shopping centers, convenient stores and other franchises.

The bank started in 1987 to deal primarily with the Korean community in Dallas. Khan joined the bank about 10 years later, helping the bank develop more resources for different Asian Americans communities.

As a first generation immigrant to the U.S., Vice President David Kim said he understands why some Asian Americans are not comfortable with the local banking systems. Kim came to the states more than 26 years ago, first working at a bigger national bank.

“The bigger banks don’t care about small customers – the small deposit customers,” Kim said. “They were not interested unless you had $50,000 in your account. I was so disappointed and frustrated because small ethnic groups are often the small customers with less money in the bank. But, those people need more help. I will mitigate between the American system and the Asian system.”

Kim said immigrants have to deal with language barriers that keep them from understanding how they can take advantage of the resources that would be helpful to their businesses, including loans and other packages. The bank also helps with commercial and real estate programs.

Andy Liu, Assistant Vice President, manages work with the Chinese community. He can speak fluently in Cantonese, Mandarin and Taiwanese. He also currently handles Vietnamese marketing for the bank.  

“Normally if you go to the bank you can only speak English,” Liu said. “When the customer comes in, we want them to feel like they can speak their own language.”