If the board allows the credit union to serve members that are not U.S. citizens, than employees must obtain a name, date of birth, physical address and individual taxpayer identification number along with the photo I.D. from a potential member before opening an account.

"You don't have to ask, 'are you a legal resident?'" Saegert said. "All you have to look at is if they're in your field of membership and if they can provide what you need for CIP (customer identification program)."

In response to a question from the audience about a member that had provided a Social Security card, Saegert said all they need to provide is an ITIN number that a Social Security card is not necessary.

Armyn discussed how she implemented what Bethpage called a multicultural initiative at the credit union. Bethpage's board had required that the credit union only serve U.S. citizens, however, employees can petition to change this.

"Don't put emphasis on CIP requirements you have to show the board your whole plan," Armyn said. "We would have gotten approval with a lot less questions if I said that the objective was to be able to include the whole community and in order to do that we need this change."

Bethpage held a round table discussion with members of Latino not-for-profit organizations in the community in order to get information on how to serve the Latino community. Armyn said that the feedback they received was that they had been overthinking the whole process and they really just needed to keep it simple. "What we heard was 'we just want you to give us access in our neighborhoods,'" Armyn said. "We just needed to provide translation materials and access points to serve those members."

In response to the roundtable Bethpage is working on translating its Web site, becoming an international remittance service provider and building relationships with local legislative and community groups.

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