FREDERICK, Md. (AP) - Too few Western Maryland banks cater to Spanish-speaking businesses owners, the president of a Hispanic business group says.

Despite a rapidly growing Hispanic population, many banks in the region have been slow to make more than token efforts to target Latino entrepreneurs, says Jorge Ribas, president of the Western Maryland Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

"Almost a third of our Chamber members complain about banks," he said.

Ribas cited dissatisfaction with interest rates, loan requirements, service and communication.

"Some of the wealthiest merchants in our Chamber have stopped using banks altogether for financing new business ventures," he told The Frederick-News Post last month.

At some banks, officers are patronizing or condescending, Ribas said. Other banks have Hispanic outreach initiatives, "but in their effort to corner the market before their competitors do, they are hiring bilingual people with little banking experience."

Jorge L. Forment, president of United Americas Bank, an Atlanta-based institution started by mostly Latino investors in 1999, said leaders of mainstream banks often fail to look beyond the language barrier.

"It's one thing to speak Spanish and it's another thing to understand the culture," he said. "When Hispanics come into the bank, the family comes, the kids come. They require a lot of attention and hand-holding, and some may find this difficult to understand."

Ribas, a veterinarian and biomedical researcher, said he plans to organize a workshop in Western Maryland to address the banking issue.

The Ecuadorean immigrant helped establish the Western Maryland Hispanic Chamber of Commerce last year to give Spanish-speaking business owners west of the Baltimore-Washington metropolitan area a more unified voice. The group has focused largely on Frederick County, where the Hispanic population numbered nearly 6,200 or 2.9 percent, in 2003 compared with about 4,700, or 2.3 percent, in 2000, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

The group has identified more than 100 Hispanic-owned businesses in the region, he said.

There is a Maryland Hispanic Chamber of Commerce as well, and Hispanic chambers exist in Anne Arundel, Harford, Howard, Montgomery and Prince George's counties, on the Eastern Shore and in Baltimore city.