Stearns Bank Lays Groundwork in Minnesota's Hmong Community

In September 2024, St. Cloud, Minn.-based Stearns Bank opened a location that is designed and run differently from any of the $3.2 billion-asset bank’s other branches. It’s a loan and deposit production office in HmongTown Marketplace, an indoor-outdoor market in St. Paul, Minn., that has become a cornerstone of the local Hmong community since it was founded in 2004. 

Stearns Bank recognized that opening shop in the marketplace would be an opportunity to become a trusted partner for this flourishing community, the marketplace’s 110-plus small businesses and customers from across the metropolitan area. 

It’s a sizable market. After the Vietnam War, many Hmong people began migrating to the U.S. as economic and political refugees. Today, about 95,000 Hmong Americans call Minnesota home. Out of that number, roughly 36,000 live in St. Paul, making it the city with the largest Hmong population in the U.S., according to 2020 census figures shared by Mark Pfeifer, director of programs at the Hmong Cultural Center in St. Paul. 

A readily available resource

Stearns Bank is now a strategic financial partner of HmongTown Marketplace. Adam Gill, the bank’s senior product and innovation brand manager, says the idea of having a presence in such a special gathering place emerged organically in conversations with the market’s owner and operator, Toua Xiong. 

After touring an available office space and seeing its potential, the community bank signed a lease and put security and IT requirements in place. Without a building to construct, Gill describes the concept as a “much cleaner and quicker build.” 

The location isn’t officially a branch, since it doesn’t have a vault or bankers who can accept cash, but it does have an ATM for withdrawals and deposits. According to Gill, “Every other [deposit and loan] product, service, solution or offering that you could imagine is still offered.” The list includes domestic and international money transfers and wires, which many community members use to send money to family abroad or to import goods. 

Stearns Bank’s HmongTown Marketplace location regularly evaluates and introduces new services and promotions for the HmongTown office and customers. Gill notes that many of its existing offerings are new to these customers. 

“It was more about access and the community knowing how a bank like us can help them,” he says. 

Indeed, the office’s customer base includes people who he notes “might have been mainly dealing with cash,” as well as others who are transitioning from past banking relationships.

Stearns Bank is committed to putting in the work to attract and keep customers who may otherwise have trouble accessing the banking products and services they need.

“This is not, ‘Oh, we do our big launch, and we drop our mic,’” says Gill. “We’re here to stay. We’re here to invest. We’re here to grow.”

‘Micro-community building’

For Gill, opening a bank in the marketplace represents the future of micro-community building for banks. “A big branch is scary, but we’re right next to the food court and boba shop,” he says. The office decor features prints by local Hmong artist Alex Yang and a 2023 traditional tapestry by Ntxawn Vaj. This “peaceful tapestry” narrates the Hmong people’s year, highlighting Hmong farming and harvesting, sports, the Hmong New Year and traditional weddings. 

Having full-time employees of Hmong descent on the banking team is also critical to Stearns Bank’s inclusive strategy. The community bank wants staffers who can communicate with individuals who aren’t completely fluent in English, so customers can get help regardless of what dialect they speak.

Hiring from within the community also allows the bank to tap into a powerful amount of knowledge, thought leadership and perspectives, notes Gill. “I think it almost would have been a disservice if we didn’t make these hires to make sure that we can bring people in and understand their relationship with money and banking,” he says. 

Stearns Bank plans to strengthen its engagement with Hmong Americans in other ways. “We’ve identified Hmong events and how we’re going to play into the entire calendar-long list of activities and the way this community comes together,” Gill says.

Other outreach efforts

Stearns Bank has launched other efforts aimed at specific communities. In June 2024, it opened a loan and deposit production office in Bloomington, Minn., inside Zawadi Center, which calls itself “where the world meets Africa.” The bank has also partnered with the African Development Center in Minneapolis and has earmarked $10 million for the center to disperse as loans to qualified borrowers in central Minnesota.

For Muslim Americans, its Stearns Salaam Banking division offers deposit and financing products that have been reviewed and approved by an independent Sharia Supervisory Board composed of scholars who are experts in Islamic finance. 

According to the community bank’s president and CEO, Kelly Skalicky, “At Stearns Bank, we have always taken an unusual approach to banking, creating new pathways to financial empowerment for those the banking industry has not served well.”