Robert C. Marsh Jr. manager of the Belmont Street branch of Brockton-based HarborOne Credit Union, teaches a financial literacy class using the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.’s “Money Smart” curriculum. Marsh co-taught last Tuesday’s session of the six-week curriculum with John Polvere, manager of HarborOne’s Montello branch of HarborOne.

If you take out a car loan, what happens if the car gets wrecked a year later?

What’s a finance charge, and why should you try to keep yours low?

How can you set up an installment loan to buy furniture?

These aren’t high-flying financial questions, but they are the concerns of Brockton-area residents learning financial literacy at HarborOne Credit Union – some of whom, the credit union hopes, will become regular customers when they’re done.

A half-dozen students attending class at HarborOne’s new Multicultural Banking Center last Tuesday took in the answers – and general word-on-the-street financial tips – from HarborOne branch managers Robert C. Marsh Jr. and John Polvere, who were teaching the “loan to own” section of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.’s six-week “Money Smart” curriculum, which has been offered at the center since it opened last fall.

Down the hall, about 20 more students studied English as a Second Language, taught by Brockton Public Schools teacher Mary Ann Dorgan.
On any given night in the week, those classes plus another for first-time homebuyers, as well as foreclosure prevention counseling, are or will soon be offered in Portuguese, Haitian and Spanish, the languages of Brockton’s ever-growing immigrant population, or about 25 percent of all residents.

“I took this class because [before], in my life in America, I lost a lot of money. I didn’t understand credit or loans, and nobody told me anything,” said Danielson DaRosa, who immigrated from Cape Verde, off the west coast of Africa, seven years ago.

DaRosa, 45, said he would like to open his own barbershop and is taking the class to put him on the right road.

HarborOne founded its Multicultural Banking Center in the credit union’s vacant headquarters last June – following the headquarters’ move to a new location – in an effort to help people like DaRosa, according to HarborOne Marketing Officer Leo MacNeil. But there’s more to it than pure goodwill.

The credit union-funded center, which also gives space to a South Shore Neighborworks affiliate and will soon house a Head Start office and rental assistance agency South Shore Housing, will earn Community Reinvestment Act credits for HarborOne, MacNeil said – and could well be the source of the customers of the future.

“We see this as an opportunity to gain market share,” he explained.

Many immigrants frequent check-cashers or payday lenders for their financial needs, he said, and many don’t trust banks or credit unions. More than a few got mortgage loans from subprime lenders that they didn’t understand or couldn’t pay in recent years, he added, contributing to Brockton’s foreclosure rate, currently one of the highest in a state hard-hit by a national crisis.

After taking classes with HarborOne staff they’ll hopefully consider friendly and helpful, “they may become new core depositors,” the checking and savings account holders that all financial institutions desire, MacNeil said.

‘Words to the Wise’

While the Multicultural Banking Center and class fees are paid with credit union funds, MacNeil said HarborOne is seeking a grant from the National Credit Union Foundation to help, and eventually hopes enough students will open accounts and take out loans to make costs break even.

All financial literacy class graduates are offered HarborOne’s free “second chance checking” account and a $500 line of credit.

So far, there are 38 graduates and 13 new checking accounts, eight lines of credit, one consumer loan and two certificate of deposit accounts. Some graduates already had checking accounts, MacNeil noted.
HarborOne believes its Multicultural Banking Center is unique in the state, and perhaps the country. And MacNeil said others are interested in its model.

“[Last Tuesday], we had a board-member visitor from a credit union on the North Shore,” he said. The man took a tour and asked questions about how the center had been set up.

Last week’s financial literacy class also featured a heated discussion on the relative benefits of leasing a car vs. paying off a car loan. Marsh and teaching colleague John Polvere, who manages HarborOne’s Montello branch, advised the loan as the wiser course; they said even though monthly payments are higher, when the borrower is done making payments, the car is his (or hers). But not every class member seemed convinced.

Polvere also prepared an eye-popping chart showing a borrower would pay $2,295 in finance charges on a five-year, $5,000 car loan at 16 percent interest, compared to just $1,374 if he or she found a rate of 10 percent.

“That’s why it’s important to shop for a loan and find a low [annual percentage rate],” he advised.

A borrower’s credit rating is key in America, and it’s much easier to ruin one’s credit than to fix it, class members learned. For that reason, once that borrower gets credit, he or she shouldn’t always use it, they were advised.

Easier said than done?

MacNeil had some words to the wise. Do like the woman he once ran into, he said, who had a credit card she couldn’t seem to stop using.
He said the woman froze her credit card inside a large block of ice in her freezer, so that whenever she wanted to use it, she had to wait for the ice to melt.

“She also told me she learned that you can’t put the ice in the microwave,” he later confided, “because that will destroy the card’s magnetic strip.”