The California arm of Banco Popular North America plans to move its regional headquarters to Anaheim from Santa Fe Springs by March.
The move solidifies Banco Popular’s ties to the county, where it has gone after Hispanic customers and advertised at Angel Stadium of Anaheim.
“The dynamics of our banking region have shifted to Anaheim,” said Vernon Aguirre, California regional executive at Banco Popular.
The bank, part of Puerto Rico’s Popular Inc. and the largest Hispanic bank in the U.S., plans to move to an office building off the Santa Ana (I-5) Freeway at 888 Disneyland Drive.
“It’s a wonderful location in the heart of a lot of great corporate banking,” Aguirre said.
The regional headquarters is set to be housed on the top floor of a five-story office building with a branch opening on the first floor.
The move stands to double Banco Popular’s employment in Orange County to about 230 workers. Roughly 100 people now work at a dozen branches in the county.
Up to 40% of Banco Popular’s business customers are Hispanic, Aguirre said.
Banco Popular’s push into OC has been significant in recent years.
In 2004, the bank bought Whittier-based Quaker City Bank, adding many OC branches plus several inside Wal-Mart stores.
Banco Popular, which has 50 branches in the state, last fall sold about 60 check cashing stores, including 10 in and around OC.
The bank opened the stores as a way to get Hispanics into the bank instead of dealing just in cash. Building bridges to the bank proved difficult, Aguirre said.
Banco Popular has about $1.5 billion in local assets and $529 million in OC deposits, according to bank officials.
It ranked No. 16 among the county’s largest banks, according to last year’s Business Journal list.
The move to Anaheim cuts down Aguirre’s commute,though only a little.
He said he takes the train each day from his Coronado Island home in San Diego to Santa Fe Springs.
Roundtrip: 300 miles.
“I’ve been doing this since 1997,” Aguirre said.
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BofA Plans Santa Ana Center
Bank of America Corp. plans to open a banking center in the heart of downtown Santa Ana.
Orange County’s largest bank already has five branches in the largely Hispanic city of 350,000 people.
“We see a great opportunity to do banking in downtown Santa Ana,” said Kim Burdick, president of the OC market for Bank of America and head of Southland premier banking.
The branch is set to open later this year at Fourth and Main streets, Burdick said.
Bank of America’s announcement this week comes at the same time a nonprofit group releases a study on the strengths of two downtown neighborhoods.
The report is from Social Compact, a Washington, D.C.-based group promoting investment in poor communities.
Bank of America is a sponsor of the study.
,Pat Maio
