# Is it true that there was no such thing as a Hispanic-owned bank in the continental USA until 1969? Tags: united-states, banking - Score: 8 - Views: 541 - Answers: 1 - Answered: yes - Asked by: Lorendiac (251 rep) - Asked: 2017-08-18 - Edited: 2018-05-11 - Site: history ## Question I was doing some online research on the subject of minority-owned banks in the USA, and I stumbled across this passage on the History page of the website of the National Bankers Association. Diversity of minority banking began in 1962, when Los Angeles based Cathay Bank became the first bank recognized as Asian-American. Centinel Bank of Taos, New Mexico followed in 1969 becoming the first US-mainland-based Hispanic bank. (Banco Popular de Puerto Rico, headquartered in San Juan, is more than 100 years old.) If I'm reading this right, that passage asserts that, until the year 1969, there literally was no such thing as a legally chartered bank, anywhere in the continental United States, which was wholly or mostly owned by one or more shareholders of Hispanic ancestry. That idea greatly startled me when I ran across it earlier today. I would have thought there must have been several Hispanic