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Bank for native
Hawaiians plans
to open by 2001

It already has half the
$7 million it needs to start

By Harold Morse
Star-Bulletin

Economic sovereignty for Hawaiians may be just around the corner -- with the planned opening of a Native Hawaiian Bank on Maui by the first of next year.

"This is a totally new bank with self-sufficiency and self-awareness," said Paul Homan, an independent consultant who served as special trustee for American Indians from 1995 to 1998.

He told about 120 people at the state Capitol auditorium last night that preliminary documents likely will be filed in June for government regulators to review; a formal application may be submitted in September.

"If we can raise the capital, we probably would be open the first of the year," he said.

The Native Hawaiian Bank may start with capital of $7 million, half of which it already has from a mainland bank, he said.

"They're going to come in and help us build this bank," Kehaulani Filimoe'atu, board president of both Na Po'e Kokua and Hawaiian Community Assets, said of bank professionals taking part -- "so that our children that come up certainly are not going to be as unbankable as they claim we are."

There are 15 Native American banks on the mainland, and the Native Hawaiian Bank here would serve 205,000 native Hawaiians as tallied in a government health survey, Homan said.

"The intent is not to replace what the state does," he said.

This community development bank will complement government programs and work closely with community organizations, Homan said.

Goals include producing affordable housing, encouraging entrepreneurship and providing financial education, with help from the state and Kamehameha Schools.

The bank would be owned by a nonprofit organization and will redistribute stock to native Hawaiians in the form of educational programs or other means, he said.

It will be run by professional bankers, and native Hawaiians will have seats on its board, Homan said. "At all times, native Hawaiians will own and control this organization."

Aopohakuku Rodenhurst, head of the Spiritual Nation of Ku and the Council of Sovereigns, said economic sovereignty will empower Hawaiians. "We support you; we're going to be there, too," she said.