Houston should prepare for Hispanic growth
Houston Business Journal - by Greg Barr Reporter

Business and political leaders in Harris County should be prepared for unprecedented change during the next 20 years as Hispanics become the dominant demographic group in the region.

That was the message delivered at a Houston conference Thursday morning presented by the Greater Houston Partnership and Hispanic business groups.

The focal point of the conference was a report issued by the Tomas Rivera Policy Institute titled "Increasing Wealth in the Latin Community."

Harry Pachon, the institute's president and CEO, said an affluent Latino middle class is growing at a rapid pace. Nationwide, 37 percent of Hispanic households have incomes of more than $50,000 and 10 percent are above $100,000, he noted.

Janet Caylor, Southeast Texas regional managing director of global wealth management for Merrill Lynch, the corporate sponsor for the event, said Houston's booming economy means Hispanic wealth is growing faster here than in other parts of the country.

Half of all minority-owned businesses in the Houston region are run by Hispanics, she said, and are growing at a rapid clip.

According to the most current U.S. Census Bureau figures, Houston is the fourth-largest Hispanic market in the country. Hispanics make up 37.4 percent of the Houston market, with a total of 1.1 million Hispanics living in Harris County.

While the aging, Anglo-dominated Baby Boom generation moves into retirement, the emerging Latino demographic -- about eight to 10 years younger than most Americans -- will begin to drive the economy, said another panelist, Stephen Klineberg, a sociology professor at Rice University.

There is plenty of work for Houston's financial institutions to do, he said, as they grapple with how to bring the lower-income segment of the Latino community into the typical financial services framework.

According to a National Survey of Latinos conducted by the Pew Hispanic Center/Kaiser Family Foundation, 35 percent of all Latinos and 53 percent of Mexican immigrants in the United States are unbanked, and use services such as payday lenders, refund anticipation loans and check cashers rather than deposit funds in banks.

"In many ways, the low-income Latino consumer is the square peg and the American financial system is the round hole. In short, they don't fit well together," the report said.


http://www.bizjournals.com/houston/stor ... a=from_rss