It believes it can make any customer relationship profitable if it can earn all of that customer's business. This is good for customers because Norwest rewards them with better products and services, and it's good for Norwest's shareholders and for the communities it serves. Financial services is a relationship business, and Norwest looks at under served markets, regardless of income levels, as potential opportunities to create relationships. Alnes remarked that despite the humbling extent of poverty and need in Indian country, there has been cause for hope over the past few decades. Education levels are rising, and many Indian tribes have taken revenue from the gaming industry, tourism, and natural resource recovery and invested it in their economies, in community development, and in improving the infrastructure.
Banks have an opportunity to participate in all of that, but it takes time.
About 10 years ago Norwest created a process called the Community Marketing Initiative Planning Process. Each bank president meets regularly with community leaders to ask questions and listen to what the community leaders say. Norwest then tries to create products and services that meet the needs of all segments of the community. As part of the Community Marketing Initiative Planning Process in Arizona, many senior Norwest executives have met with leaders of the Navajo Nation, have attended tribal council meetings, and have worked with the tribal leaders to try to understand what types of products and services would best meet the needs of the Navajos. There are now five ATMs, and more than 90 percent of the staff are Native American.