05.29.07
Big banks put the squeeze on L.A. Koreatown’s lenders
Right: Doing business at Nara Bank in L.A.
The L.A. Times reports on the community banks of Koreatown, which are increasingly losing business to bigger institutions.
According to the article, mainstream banks like Bank of America and Wells Fargo have muscled in on the neighborhood as L.A.’s Korean Americans have prospered and blended into the social and economic scene, and this has hurt the smaller lenders that have served the community since the ’80s. (Call it the Financial Wal-Mart Effect.)