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MN: Now, as president of Merit Savings, can you share with us some of your more popular innovations that you did there?

BK: I think the fact that we were the first Japanese American savings and loan, I think competition with the other financial institutions was a, kind of a first, in terms of competition with the Japanese banks. Now, the banks didn't know what a savings and loan was because they didn't have any animal like that in Japan. They only had commercial banks, so they, however, had the clout from the standpoint of capital. We were just coming back into society, trying to get buoyant, trying to make some money and trying to get established, so the banks really didn't have to fear us, but they, they were adjusting to the new things that were comin' up. We were primarily into real estate, and the commercial banks did everything. They made personal loans, they made commercial loans, they made real estate loans. They also did financing and accounts receivable, a lot of different things. We were just real estate specialists, primarily on homes and apartments and that was it.

MN: I was reading one of your Merit Savings newsletters and I also remember one of, something that was really popular with your customers was you had Merit Savings open on Saturdays.

BK: What?

MN: Saturdays, you opened on Saturdays.

BK: Oh yes, half day Saturday.

MN: Which was very unusual at that time in the '50s.

BK: That, we tried to promote business and trying to get people to come and open up accounts. We found out that other commercial banks didn't open on Saturday, but some of the savings and loans that we were with did, and so we followed their lead and opened half day Saturdays, which led to getting new business because a lot of people who worked during the week didn't have time to go to the bank, so it was very successful.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.