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Doral Bank Opens With An Old World Jewish Tradition and Extra Money Benefits

by Steve Howard

Doral Bank opened in New York City this January with lots of good news for the Jewish, and other ethnic communities. The bank's founder and CEO has an interesting Jewish background. But first, here are some of the reasons we felt you and all our readers would be interested in Doral Bank.

Yes, Doral Bank is a full service bank. There plan is to open branches in neighborhoods with ethnic concentrations, adjusting to the specific needs of the community. In relation to the Jewish neighborhoods, it means closed on Saturday and open on Sunday. Doral is definitely offering more benefits than other banks. To begin with, Doral prides itself with its specialty - highly personalized customer service. They are interested in business clients as well as individual customers.

Doral brings to New York a fresh source of money for mortgages as well as loans for small and mid-sized firms, real estate companies, and start-up ventures. Mr. Richard Bonini, Sr. Executive Vice President, recently approved a $5 million loan to a business in Boro Park, Brooklyn.

The bank offers free checking account service with no minimum balance required, unlimited transactions and no per-check fee. Doral also offers tiered-interest savings accounts with interest rates that inflate with larger balances.

Wait, there's more. Doral has a special 18-month certificate of deposit, which carries an annual percentage yield (APY) of 6.45 percent. Plus a CD/IRA account with an annual percentage yield (APY) of 7.5 percent for 2� years for up to $100,000 per customer.

Presently, Doral's headquarters is located at 387 Park Avenue South at 27th Street in Manhattan, opens at 8 a.m. and closes at 6pm, early in the week, but remains open to 7pm. Thursday and Friday. At the moment, this branch opens Saturday 9am to 6pm.

As Doral opens in local neighborhoods their hours will reflect the needs of the community, and will always have longer branch hours than their nearby competitors in all of its locations. "We have a strong affinity for the immigrant populations" noted Robert E. Reiner, Doral Bank's President and Chief Operating Officer. Branch staff are trained to respond quickly to customer requests and are multilingual, making non-English speaking customers feel welcome.

Where did Doral Bank come from and who's behind this aggressive customer oriented financial organization? Doral Bank New York is a subsidiary of Doral Financial Corporation, a publicly-owned $4.6 billion financial company based in Puerto Rico. Salomon Levis is it's chairman. Mr. Levis was born in Cuba of Jewish Polish parents.

In 1960, he moved to Puerto Rico where he earned a Bachelor Degree in Business, and a law degree, graduating cum laude. In 1972, Salomon, with his brother David, founded a mortgage company. Today, the firm now has more than 57 branches with big plans for the United States.