3 Digital Localization Trends for Banks & Credit Unions

Introduction

About one in five U.S. residents identify as Hispanic. The number of Hispanic households earning $100,000+ has increased 313% since 2001. The number of Hispanic business owners grew 34% over the past 10 years, compared to 1% for all U.S. business owners.

These are indisputable indicators that U.S. Hispanics represent a valuable growth market for banks, credit unions and other financial institutions. In fact, nearly 70% of Hispanics actively seek information about financial products and services—a significantly higher number than non-Hispanics.

And yet Hispanics remain largely underserved in the U.S. According to a Federal Reserve report and a Univision/Harris study:

11% of U.S. Hispanics are unbanked and 23% are underbanked
Only half of Hispanics have a checking or savings account (versus 72% of non-Hispanics).
They’re less likely to have a credit card, and less confident they’d be approved for one
They’re more likely to experience problems accessing their funds than non-Hispanics

Hispanics are also more likely to be dissatisfied with the financial information currently available to them, and don’t know what services are right for them.

Why are so many financial institutions struggling to engage and properly serve Hispanics? Much of the data points to a lack of fully understanding their needs, and—more importantly—not offering a Spanish-language user experience.

Eliminating the Language Barrier

Plenty of studies and MotionPoint’s own research indicate that providing Spanish-language user experiences—especially in digital channels, where Hispanics are power users—increase customer & member acquisition and retention, and deepen relationships. Financial institutions with translated websites often experience:

Higher user satisfaction and lower Spanish-language phone support requests, thanks to localized online support content
Better informed and loyal customers & members, which generates seamless opportunities to upsell
Improved ranking in online Spanish-language searches
And more

MotionPoint has localized and operated websites for financial institutions of all sizes for 20 years, including six of America’s Top 10 banks. We’ve found three trends that indicate that now is the time for banks, credit unions and financial institutions to localize their digital CX.

Trend 1: Translation Attracts and Keeps Business

Spanish-speaking‚ and many bilingual, Hispanics prefer to conduct their banking and online business in Spanish. Our own studies indicate that users of Spanish-language sites are heavily engaged while on-site—perhaps even more so than users of English-language origin sites.

For most localized of MotionPoint’s Spanish-language financial sites, over 30% of visits hail from returning visitors. These visits are generally brief, suggesting users are confidently accessing online banking features and quickly getting the information they seek.

The remaining 70% of Spanish-speaking users are investigating a variety of products and services. It’s clear that translating key educational website sections is a great source of engagement and conversions among Spanish speakers.

Trend 2: Customized Content Moves the Needle

Offering tailored, highly relevant content to Spanish speakers also improves engagement and conversion rates. Hispanics have unique financial needs that banks and credit unions can cater to, especially online in Spanish.

The financial sites we translate and operate benefit greatly from this tailored content. In fact, they drive as much as 50% of traffic to a localized site.

Here are a few ways financial institutions can win Hispanic business:

Become an Educational Resource

A much higher percentage of Hispanics want to learn more about financial matters than non-Hispanics (84% vs. 69%). Financial institutions should lean into this, and position themselves as invaluable educational resources for Spanish-speakers.

Specialize in What Matters Most

Organizations can also position themselves as authoritative and trustworthy resources on topics that are very important to Hispanics, such as learning about buying a home (23% Hispanics want to learn more about this, compared to 10% of non-Hispanics) and using / managing credit (23% Hispanics vs. 14% non-Hispanics).

Cater to Hispanic Business Owners

Hispanics are 1.5x more likely to start a new business than non-Hispanics, representing one of the most important U.S. demographics for small business loans. We’ve seen success among organizations that offer Spanish-language, entrepreneur-friendly websites.

Trend 3: The Value of Localized Mobile-Friendly Sites (vs. Apps)

U.S. Hispanics adopt mobile devices more enthusiastically than the general U.S. population. Our proprietary research confirms that they’re using smartphones and tablets to do their online banking.

We’ve seen an average of 64% of Spanish-language sessions hailing from mobile devices. Offering a localized, responsive-design website is obviously mission critical for serving this market.

In fact, providing a translated mobile-friendly website may be more important than offering a Spanish-language mobile app. Why?

Many apps focus exclusively on mobile banking. They’re great for transactional use, but don’t usually offer the robust educational resources websites do—which, as we’ve seen, is very important to Hispanics.

Conclusion

Translating digital experiences makes smart sense for financial institutions. It empowers them to attract new customers & members, and provide relevant offerings that keep them.

MotionPoint has translated and operated financial services websites for 20 years. We have the technical, operational and linguistic expertise to help banks and credit unions increase their acquisition and retention, reduce support service costs and enhance discoverability in Spanish-speaking markets.