(Bloomberg) -- M&T Bank Corp. is adding almost 100 branches to an initiative that offers banking and other financial services in languages beyond English and draws bankers from local communities to better serve diverse populations.
The program will expand the number of locations first designated in 2020 as “multicultural banking-center branches” to 118 in cities across the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions, the Buffalo, New York-based company said in a statement Thursday. The goal is to offer customers “banking services in their preferred language and with an understanding of their culture,” the bank said.
To qualify, a branch must have more than one multilingual employee and be in a location that meets certain population characteristics, M&T said. Census data and feedback from both the community and local bankers helped determine which locations were selected for the designation, M&T said.
“What we need to be focused on is hiring and growing talent that is hyper local,” Chris Kay, head of consumer banking, business banking and marketing at M&T, said in an interview. “These are existing locations which are serving existing communities. We want to serve them more deeply.”
On top of expanding the number of branches offering services in more languages, M&T also unveiled a Spanish-language website and updated its ATMs so customers can bank in Chinese and Korean as well as English and Spanish.
“When we look at the opportunity here, it's really about going deeper into our community and making sure that we can uncover the barriers of access to banking,” Kay said in an interview Thursday with Bloomberg Television.
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