Miriam De Dios, Coopera
DES MOINES, Iowa—The moves by Walmart to offer its GoBank account, as well as health insurance services, is a signal to CUs catering to the growing U.S. Hispanic market that they must expand their offerings, according to one person.
Miriam De Dios, CEO of Coopera, believes the latest Walmart offerings make the huge retailer almost a one-stop shop for many needs of U.S. Hispanics, who represent more than $1-trillion in buying power.
“The Latino market is very underserved and Walmart knows what they are doing with this untapped market,” she said. “It just makes sense that they start to offer a kind of omni-channel channel experience.”
De Dios believes Walmart health insurance services will draw interest from the Latino community.
“Health insurance is very confusing, especially in terms of what is available for the immigrant population,” De Dios said. “Finding simplified solutions will be attractive. If Walmart can do that well and provide the customer experience, in a relevant way—including addressing language issues—there is big potential to grow.”
De Dios advises that credit unions either serving or planning to serve Hispanics should consider offering a health insurance exchange or be able to provide Latinos with advice on where they can obtain health insurance from a reputable provider.
“For example, here in Iowa many credit unions have partnered with CoOportunity Health,” said De Dios, about the health insurance exchange based in Des Moines.
While De Dios sees Walmart successfully cross-selling checking accounts to Latinos who stop by for health insurance, she does not see the retailer keeping all of the financial services relationships, mainly due to checking fees.
“While GoBank is advertised as low-cost, the fees attached to this service make it anything but low-cost,” said De Dios. “This is a short-term financial solution being offered by Walmart and is not meant to build long-term relationships—which is where credit unions can play a large role with the underbanked. GoBank won’t help Latinos build credit or achieve all those financial goals the Hispanic market wants.”
De Dios emphasized that any CU Hispanic outreach program must be relevant to the Latino community—meaning well-planed products that meet the needs of the local Hispanic market, and staff who not only speak Spanish but understand Latinos. She also stressed that credit unions will not be successful with any Hispanic outreach unless there is buy-in throughout the credit union, starting at the top.
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DES MOINES, Iowa—The moves by Walmart to offer its GoBank account, as well as health insurance services, is a signal to CUs catering to the growing U.S. Hispanic market that they must expand their offerings, according to one person.