As loud spanish music competes with Spanish-speaking voices, bank manager Elba Pichardo walks the floor of a crowded Banco Popular branch in upper Manhattan, shaking hands and nodding at familiar faces. Spying a commercial client, she asks in Spanish what he needs and then escorts him to open a personal checking account. "I didn't want him to wait," Pichardo explains. The nation's largest Hispanic-owned bank, Banco Popular will need such neighborly tactics to stave off big banks in what has suddenly become a hot market for Hispanics' banking business. His-panics are the nation's fastest-growing ethnic group at 13.3% of the U.S. population, a share expected to grow to 15.5%, or 48 million people, by 2010. Former U.S. Treasurer Rosario Marin estimates that 40% of the 10 million people in America who do not have direct relationships with a mainstream financial institution are Hispanic. Hence the chase by U.S. and foreign banks for Hispanic dollars.
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