Banks push financial literacy
By Sherry Slater
The Journal Gazette
Monday, October 08, 2007
But five Somali Bantu women sat silently amid their seven infants and toddlers on a recent morning at the African Immigrants Social & Economic Development Agency on East Wayne Street.
After a few moments, the brave one, the one who has the best command of English, said: “No.” Even after hearing the right answer, another woman, wearing a red head scarf and holding her baby, clearly looked confused.
“My head today no good,” she told the teacher.
Two months into financial literacy classes being taught by Wells Fargo bankers, the students’ progress is marked in inches rather than miles.
Banks see teaching savings and other aspects of financial literacy as part of their corporate duty. And it’s a way to reach out to potential new customers.
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Photos by Samuel Hoffman | The Journal Gazette Wells Fargo workers Kim Siratei and Jennifer MacAleese help women understand checking accounts. Maryan Arbow, from Somalia, discusses checking accounts at the African Immigrant Social and Economic Development Agency. Photos by Samuel Hoffman | The Journal Gazette Maryan Arbow, left, learns how to balance a checkbook from Jennifer MacAleese of Well Fargo at the African Immigrant Social and Economic Development Agency. Kim Siratei of Wells Fargo is a financial instructor at the agency. Click thumbnails to see larger image |
National City “very regularly” leads classes on financial literacy in the community, Mejia said.
Chase also offers material online and free financial literacy classes, spokeswoman Nancy Norris said. When invited by employers, Chase bankers will go to workplaces and teach basic skills such as balancing checkbooks or more advanced material such as saving for retirement. The New York-based bank also leads sessions at the invitation of community groups, Norris said.
“This is an ongoing thing. It’s a priority for us,” she said.
Many banks consider teaching financial literacy a priority, according to Laura Fisher, director of the American Bankers Association Education Foundation, a subsidiary of the Washington-based industry association.
The financial institutions have two strong motivations: growing their customer base and increasing staff morale. From the business side, the real value is meeting with potential markets in the “neutral zone” of the classroom, Fisher said.
“Financial education is rewarding for the bank staff as well,” she said. “They’re able to use their financial skills to give back to the community.”
Banks have long donated considerable time and money to community-based organizations and efforts, Fisher said. Offering financial literacy classes is “a way for banks to become more sophisticated, more targeted, with their community service,” she said.
The women in last month’s Wells Fargo-led class struggled with the ideas of numbers and math as much as they did with English. Somalis grow up speaking Maay Maay, a language that isn’t written.
The students appeared to robotically copy the teacher’s numbers into their practice check registers without comprehending that they were supposed to be subtracting a check amount from the previous balance.
Terry Taylor, a volunteer advocate, said Fort Wayne’s 15 or 16 Somali families each spent 10 to 12 years in Kenyan refugee camps before they were resettled in the U.S.
“Some of them come over here with number knowledge, and some don’t,” Taylor said as she held a child so its mother could concentrate on the lesson. The women in the class have lived in the U.S. at least three years, Taylor said.
Kim Siratei, the Wells Fargo personal banker who has taught the weekly class since June, had to ratchet down her expectations after meeting the students.
“My first time coming, I didn’t know where they were at,” she said after last week’s class. “After I met with them, I realized I needed to do entry-level (lessons).”
Andy Veenstra, Wells Fargo’s Fort Wayne president, said the curriculum is part of the Hands on Banking program, the company’s free interactive financial education program available online. The lessons, which are geared to children, teens, young adults and adults, are free of commercial content but not the San Francisco-based bank’s brand, he said.
Wells Fargo also makes its banking curriculum available to teachers, but Veenstra wasn’t aware whether any local classrooms are using the materials.
The bank sees serving the community’s needs as one of its core values, he said. Although Wells Fargo always hopes to grow its market, the possibility of cultivating new customers isn’t the primary reason the company pays a banker to teach the free classes, Veenstra said.
“This is one of the ways we feel we bring value to the marketplace,” he said. “It’s a quality-of-life issue, as far as I’m concerned.”
Tony Aduro, the agency’s executive director, said that in Somalia, husbands handle the money and wives care for the children. In that society, those gender roles aren’t negotiable.
Part of his mission is to help these refugee families adapt to an “open society” where husbands and wives are partners and both have access to the couple’s money.
“If you’re going to buy a house here, they’re going to ask you about your wife. They’re going to ask about your wife’s credit,” Aduro said. “Here, everything comes together as one.”
The East Africans need to learn concepts as basic as the fact that bills have due dates and customers are expected to pay the bills before that date or risk creating a bad credit history.
Aduro, a Nigeria native who has lived in the U.S. since 1999, estimated that 90 percent of Fort Wayne’s Somali families have checking accounts. But the men write most of the checks, sometimes coached by volunteers the agency sends to their home.
The wives, who don’t work, are available to attend free English and financial literacy classes at the agency on weekdays. The staff provides lessons, transportation and child care five days a week. Wells Fargo bankers join the class for one hour each Wednesday morning.
The African Immigrants Social & Economic Development Agency every year serves 200 to 250 individuals, not including children, Aduro said. Some, he said, have been victims of predatory lenders.
Siratei, the financial literacy teacher, starts each class with the Somali women by reviewing the previous lesson. She believes the students are making progress.
Aduro isn’t expecting a quick fix from Wells Fargo, which he solicited to offer the classes.
“I know it’s going to continue for quite some time because (the women) have very little English,” he said, adding that he’s “very pleased” with how the classes are going.
“They will make it,” he said. “They will understand.”
Taylor, the volunteer advocate who also teaches the women English, said the banking lessons are critical to the families’ efforts to become financially independent.
“They’re not ready for (these lessons) yet,” she said, “but they have to be exposed at some point.”