Banco Sí had a festive celebration featuring ethnic food and Chinelos dancers after its official ribbon-cutting ceremony at its downtown Springdale branch Sept. 13.
More than 450 people attended the ceremony, including dignitaries from the Arkansas State Chamber of Commerce and the Arkansas Securities Department. Banco Si is the brainchild of Gary Head, the CEO of Signature Bank of Arkansas, who determined northwest Arkansas needed a bank wholly focused on providing services to Spanish-speaking customers.
The first Banco Sí branch opened on South First Street in Rogers in September 2022. The success at that location prompted Head to open the second branch on East Emma Avenue on June 24 in Springdale.
“It has just had incredible acceptance and excitement from the community that deserves it,” Head said. “We are trying to serve a community that has been underserved horribly. They are excited to have some attention paid.”
Head said he didn’t have exact statistics as to how successful the bank branches have been in signing up new Spanish-speaking customers. While no exact figures would be released, the results so far have “exceeded expectations,” according to a bank spokeswoman.
“It is the right thing to do and it is the most underserved market in northwest Arkansas,” Head said. “I believe and our board believes that it is an incredible opportunity. We’re going to plant a flag and make it work. I’m not worried about it working at all. This is a 10K, not a sprint. We are in it for the long run.”
To oversee the Springdale branch, Head could think of no better candidate than Eddie Ramos, a banking veteran and a member of the Springdale School Board. Ramos, who was born in Mexico and moved to Springdale when he was 10, knows exactly where his Spanish-speaking customers are coming from when it comes to banking in the United States.
“It was a massive need,” said Ramos, the bank’s senior vice president. “Our diversity in Springdale is huge. We have a large Hispanic community that some don’t speak English and some do but prefer things in their language because it is what they grew up with. It was just a matter of getting our name out and making sure everybody knows we are here to serve them in their language.”
Education Matters
Ramos, who runs the bank alongside manager Patty Carranza, said the most important piece of Banco Sí is not necessarily its checking and debit accounts or loan portfolio for small businesses, but its educational outreach.
Both Ramos and Head said many of the Spanish-first speakers in northwest Arkansas have come from countries where there’s a strong distrust of financial institutions. That results in many Hispanics opting not to bank, especially when the banks they had access to had minimal Spanish-language service.
“We are very heavily in the education piece,” Ramos said. “We try to educate our people in how products work, how lending works, how they can utilize the tools they probably weren’t utilizing before. We can teach people how technology works, how interest works. The education piece is something we bring to the table.”
Ramos said many branches in northwest Arkansas have a bilingual teller or officer, but Banco Sí has Spanish speakers at all positions. Most are Spanish-first speakers, such as Ramos, and come originally from countries such as Mexico, El Salvador and Guatemala.
“Everybody in that branch has the language so when we transition people from, for example, a deposit need to the loan side,” Ramos said. “That was a need that had not been filled yet. That is our goal for folks, whatever it is they need in their language without having someone stand beside them trying to translate.”
Head said it is understandable why many Spanish speakers would be reluctant to bank at an institution even when a translator is available. Head got the idea for Banco Si when he visited a Mexican bank in 2021.
“If you’re trying to borrow money as a small-business guy and you go in and talk to a guy who only speaks English, you walk out of there saying, ‘What the hell am I signing up for?’” Head said. “You wouldn’t sign a contract in Spanish if you didn’t understand it. You need to understand and be 100% sure what you’re signing on to.
“There are so many Latino and Latina small businesses in the area, and they’re doing it out of pocket because they haven’t been availed of banking services. We are just trying to offer you the same service that everybody else has been offered for years.”
Delivering on Promises
Head said he and the bank’s board of directors currently have no plans to open a third branch. The plan is to open Banco Sí offices in existing Signature Bank branches in cities such as Bentonville, Fayetteville, Jonesboro and Harrison.
Head believes fervently that Banco Si is a successful long-term play because northwest Arkansas has 200,000 Spanish speakers.
However, some of his customers at both Banco Sí branches don’t fall into that category, Head said, noting that one of his longtime English-speaking clients uses the Springdale branch for convenience because her business is in downtown Springdale.
“We’re not going to discriminate,” Head said. “You can speak Swahili and come bank with us. The numbers are way on my side. You still have to prove yourself that you’re going to deliver what you promised.”
Susannah Marshall, the commissioner of the Arkansas Securities Department, said she wasn’t surprised a second Banco Sí branch was opened and said the format would create new economic opportunities and a better quality of life for the area’s Hispanics. Randy Zook, the CEO of the Arkansas State Chamber of Commerce, said Banco Si was a “terrific” investment for the community and for downtown Springdale.
“What a phenomenal opportunity this is for Springdale, for Signature Bank, for the whole entire community,” Marshall said. She called Signature Bank “an Arkansas state bank that is innovative and thinking outside the box and thinking about how we can make sure that we serve all the citizens of this state.”
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