Content area
Full Text
New Name, Ads Aim for "More Inclusive" Image
MEDIA & MARKETING
Banco Popular is no more.
Popular Community Bank is open for business.
Chicago-based Banco Popular North America - part of Puerto Rico-based Popular Inc. - is rebranding itself with a new name and advertising to appeal to more nonHispanic customers.
The name change happened this month at its 24 Southern California branches - including 11 in Orange County - and others in Florida. It followed a soft rollout in Illinois last year.
The change could help the bank make inroads with a segment of customers it lost after buying Whittier-based Quaker City Bancorp Inc. in 2004.
"It was then that we first started to realize (the name) was an issue, acting as a barrier of sorts with the non-Hispanic population," said Senior Vice President of U.S. Operations Manuel Chinea.
Then-Banco Popular saw its strength with Hispanic customers tum into a weakness when it lost Quaker City customers and saw few new accounts opened by non-Hispanics.
"That was the first time we started seeing and feeling that there was a...