Paula Carde’s family business almost didn’t get off the ground, because no traditional bank was willing to extend an initial line of credit to the fledgling construction company. “I went to SunTrust, I went to BB&T, I went to Four Oaks,” says Carde, “and because our business was so new, they weren’t willing to give us enough.”
The only North Carolina financial institution willing to take a chance on Carde, her brother, and her father—all immigrants from Chile—was the Latino Community Credit Union, headquartered in Durham. The 26-year-old Carde had been depositing her paychecks there for years, and in retrospect she should have approached LCCU first. Taking chances on immigrants is what the credit union does.
LCCU, which has 10 branches throughout North Carolina, serves a population that most other financial institutions overlook. Many of its members live paycheck to paycheck, have never opened a deposit account, and don’t speak fluent English. Yet LCCU is one of the fastest-growing and most financially stable credit unions in the country, with a delinquency rate lower than those of its peers. READ MORE
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