A CDFI and LICU serving Phoenix’s Spanish-speaking residents
Phoenix, Arizona, is an unusual major city, in part because of its landlocked location and intense desert climate. They’ve also seen a huge growth in their population in recent decades, with the city having the greatest jump in population from 2000-2010 of any US city besides Las Vegas. Additionally, being fairly close to the US-Mexican border, the Latinx population in Phoenix has increased four times over in the past 50 years, and 30% of Phoenix’s population speaks Spanish in the home. Their massive growth, especially in their Latinx population, presents many opportunities for capital needs to be filled by better banking options, rather than national banking giants.
MariSol FCU is one of these better options, and having achieved both Low-Income Credit Union (LICU) and Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI) designations, they’ve shown commitment to providing excellent banking services to city residents. Like many credit unions, they have a local focus, limiting their eligibility to residents of central Phoenix and a few other neighborhoods and being a proud member of Local First Arizona, a non-profit organization which encourages small business spending and strong local economies.
Not typical of many credit unions, MariSol FCU makes an effort to make banking easier for members who may not speak English fluently, as they include Spanish translations on their website and in 2015 received the Juantos Avanzamos designation (Together We Advance) designation from inclusiv. This designation is given to Community Development Credit Unions that excellently serve Latinx immigrants with banking services that enable them to build wealth. They also are included on Bank for Good’s website, which means they’ve made a commitment to keep their lending portfolio fossil-fuel free.
MariSol FCU also does well in our search engine, showing up as the 10th highest scoring option in Phoenix and the 2nd highest scoring credit union. While they could be doing more small business and housing lending, they do a significant amount of emergency and consumer lending, to provide fair rates to families that could otherwise turn to payday loans. They have two branches, one of which operates in a LMI (low- and moderate-income) neighborhood. Even after merging with several other local credit unions between 2002 and 2009, they’ve managed to stay relatively small in assets and locally focused.
We recommend MariSol FCU as a Better Banking Option to anyone living or working in Phoenix, AZ, especially those who want to support underbanked, Spanish-speaking Latinx immigrants in the city. It’s always an exceptionally beneficial thing to put your money back into YOUR community through your banking practices, but it’s even more so when you know that money is going to help those communities which have been traditionally ignored by other banks, and which would benefit most from great loan products and banking service.
Check out their website to learn more and, if you are eligible, move your money there TODAY.