Richard Carrion's family founded Banco Popular 108 years ago, but it's the next two years that could be crucial.

Having established its North American headquarters in Chicago less than three years ago, the Puerto Rico-based bank is the largest Hispanic bank in the country and has set its sights on doubling its U.S. size in the next two years, according to a spokesman.

It aims to do so by reaching out to the non-Hispanic customer and small and mid-sized businesses. Richard Carrion was in Chicago this week promoting the bank's repositioning.

"We want people to know we don't just have Hispanic customers - that we have customers from a diverse background," said Carrion, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology educated chairman of Popular Inc., the parent company of Banco Popular.

The change will be heralded with a new advertising campaign being launched this month with the slogan, "At Banco Popular, clients feel important because they are." The ads will feature customers from a variety of backgrounds as Banco Popular targets, in particular, women and minorities.

Carrion is circumspect on whether the bank, which trades on the Nasdaq, is going to grow by acquisition even though it has in the past. In 1999, it bought Aurora National Bank in Aurora.

He isn't even willing to confirm the bank's aim of doubling in size. Despite the company's announcement that it intends to do so, he said a 15 percent growth rate would be acceptable.

Locally, Chicagoan Roberto Herencia successfully argued for the bank to locate its U.S. headquarters here, despite the fact that New York's operations are double the size.

Banco Popular now boasts 21 local branches and $1.5 billion in assets. Nevertheless, it remains much smaller than several of its competitors, including Chicago-based Bank One Corp. with its $260 billion in assets, 190 local branches and 16,000 local employees. In whole, Popular Inc. has about $33 billion in assets and more than 11,000 employees.

It is the size of Bank One and the other mainstream banks that dominate the Chicago area that could chip away at Banco Popular's base constituency.

Those banks have stepped up their marketing to the Hispanic community.

"Harris Bank does more with our chamber than Banco Popular does," said Rey Cruz, president of the Aurora Chamber of Commerce. "They (Harris) have been doing a good job of getting involved."

Regardless, Herencia said he's not afraid of the big banks with their Hispanic outreach departments.

"We have strong name recognition in the Hispanic community and that will benefit us," said Herencia, a veteran banker who came over more than a decade ago from American National Bank, a Bank One unit. "I don't lose sleep over them."

However, if Banco Popular's Latino base is solid it still may have trouble competing for non-Hispanic small and mid-sized businesses, said William Hocter, former executive vice president of the Illinois Bankers Association and presently executive-in-residence at the finance department of DePaul University, Chicago.

"I'd raise some question as to whether they can make a real dent in the small business portfolio of a big bank like Harris," Hocter said. "But it certainly is possible to gear up and do something exciting."

For years, Banco Popular was one of just a few banks vying for the Hispanic banking market. Mainstream banks either ignored the market or saw outreach efforts sputter, according to Hocter.

Banking analysts said mainstream banks began to notice that Banco Popular was making a tidy sum from the same group that wasn't even on many radar screens.

Banco Popular did it with a variety of bilingual initiatives.

One way was accepting a variety of forms of identification from those attempting to open accounts. Currently, it accepts Mexican passports, consular registration, Mexico voter cards, Mexico drivers licenses and U.S. tax identification cards.

In addition, Banco Popular noticed that many of its customers were requesting smaller loans, so it went after the smaller auto, home and business loans.

It also broadened loan requirements, accepting rent checks and other proof of income. The result has been that Hispanics with little or no credit history can buy homes. And the default rate is low, the company said.

"What we do is very simple," said Carrion whose bank has been in the United States for 40 years. "We find out what the customer needs and we fill the needs."

The Hispanic population in the Chicago area grew 25 percent between 1990 and 2000 to 1.4 million. Yet about 50 percent of Banco Popular's customers are non-Hispanic.

With the Hispanic community, Carrion said, Banco Popular has the advantage. The aspect to work on, he said, is the non-Hispanic market and small and mid-sized businesses.

"We are telling people we are a community bank," Carrion said. "We're going to be focused on customers and small businesses. It's not very sophisticated, but that is what we do."