Subscribe via E-Mail

Get all of our news delivered fresh to your inbox every morning! Just tell us your name and where to send it using the form below.

PS – We hate spam too. We don’t sell or share our list with anyone, and we never send commercial email.




luxe
Friday, January 29th, 2016  |  USD: Buy 531.29 / Sell 543.92
20 years

BCR launches Banca Kristal, new women-only bank; receives some harsh criticism

Email this page

(Courtesy)

(Courtesy)

November 27th, 2015 (ICR News) The state-owned Banco de Costa Rica (BCR) will open on Monday five branches of a new subsidiary bank dedicated exclusively to women, called Banca Kristal, but not everyone is impressed with the idea.

 

The concept was developed over a period of just six months, with an investment of about US $15 million.

 

The women-only bank will offer special products not available to other BCR customers, including specialized credit cards, loan products, and savings plans, all with preferential rates, special savings and credit products related to health and education, and other banking products targeted towards women, according to BCR.

 

“Kristal corresponds with a commercial strategy based on various studies that showed women need market segmentation.  Women represent 50 percent of the population,” BCR spokeswoman Kattia Morales said.

 

Banca Kristal will open Monday with two branches in downtown San Jose, as well as branches in Plaza del Sol, Galería Escazú, City Mall, and a branch in Limon.

 

The branches are decorated in white and pink and even contain a play area for children.

 

Not everyone is impressed with the concept, however.

 

Hundreds of people, including many women, have taken to social media to express their disapproval of the concept, calling Banca Kristal sexist and that the bank is reinforcing stereotypes about women, including in its advertising.

 

On Facebook and Twitter, many critics said that the “Barbie-themed” bank branches look “more like hair salons than banks.”

 

“Thank you BCR for reinforcing the worst gender stereotypes possible with their Banca Kristal, a disgusting idea,” Marcia Ugarte in Curridabat wrote on Banca Kristal’s Facebook page using the hashtag #YoNOquierounBancoRosa (“I DON’T want a Pink Bank.”)

 

The criticism even led bank director Monica Segnini to respond on Facebook, saying that she apologizes for “certain elements” that have appeared in advertising for the new bank, though adding that she continues to stand by the concept.

 

Critics have set up a Facebook page demanding that the new bank be shut down, and are organizing a protest during a concert being held by Banca Kristal on Saturday.

 

costa rica news

ATTENTION: If you are seeing this message,


Advertisement


Get our news delivered fresh to your inbox every morning.

Click here to subscribe to our email list. We hate spam too and never send commercial email.

Like us on Facebook and receive our news in your timeline

  • gc

    so when you hear village idiots pontificating about how public private partnership is the route to quality small business and self employment, remember this article.

  • Yeims

    I’ve been to three county fairs and a goat race, and thought I had seen it all . . . until now.

  • Roberto

    An investment of about US $15 million? The customers must get facials, manicures, pedicures, etc. while doing business in the bank. Pobricitas!
    In fact, Central American Date, the online financial reporter, just called the country an ineptocracy, meaning a place run by the inept. The Urban Dictionary describes the term as “a system of government where the least capable to lead are elected by the least capable of producing,
    and where the members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a diminishing number of producers”

  • Jimmy Kirk

    How about they really get a good laugh and open an expat only branch that specializes in helping the people that can actually spend more money here instead of putting restrictions on the ATMs. Hire people that can understand the different languages and be of help to us older retired folks that could sure use the help.

  • Mark Kahle

    Consumers and users are entitled to the protection of their health,
    environment, safety and financial interests; to receive adequate and
    truthful information; to freedom of choice and to equal treatment.
    The State shall support any bodies established for the purpose of
    defending their rights. The law shall regulate those matters. (As
    amended by Law N° 7607, May 29, 1996).

  • Ken Morris

    Hmmm. I can see tailoring products to appeal to different demographics, including women, but entirely separate bank branches seems a stretch. It would make more sense to have female-only buses, since on mixed sex buses women risk being groped and ogled, but nobody’s proposing that for buses and I doubt groping and ogling are serious problems in banks.

    Assuming this isn’t shot down on the basis of its obvious discrimination, it would be fun to get observers to time the waits in the female-only banks and compare them to the male-allowed banks. If the waits are shorter in the female-only banks, bingo, there’s a case.

    However, it will be more fun just to wait for the transgender crowd to show up. What will the bank’s policy be about guys wearing dresses?

    • Anita Sarkeetsian

      Meanwhile businesses from coffee shops in Seattle to retail stores in NYC are charging men more for the same goods/services than women. If you’re a guy, or have a son, you shouldn’t find this funny.

      This is institutionalized discrimination and what happens next isn’t far from what Nazi Germany initially did to the Jews or Jim Crow laws did for African Americans.

      Discriminating against a gender, or skin color, is wrong. Protest Banca Kristal and expose their employees.

  • Roberto

    Better name for the bank…Banca Barbie !!

    • gc

      Bimbo Banco.

    • Anita Sarkeetsian

      Banca de SEXIST WHORES

  • Anita Sarkeetsian

    Fuck this sexist man-hating bank. This is DISCRIMINATION. Plain and simple. Banca Kristal hates men!

Popular Content