Does the negative stereotyping of black people as hoodie-wearing, weapon-wielding, and social-security- using have far wider consequences than we think? I wonder if it’s a factor, for instance, in why the financial services providers have been slow in cultivating members of the community.

Maybe I’m one of those highly-strung people always looking for race-related undertones, but check out this ‘ethnic’ data on the finance sector in the U.S; African- American people own fewer credit cards than other groups, and they also use them far less. A new report states that financial services providers have an untapped market potential in this community and that they have not really made directed efforts towards wooing the market.

The African-American community earns more than another group consistently lured by card providers, the Hispanics. And although card usage statistics between the two groups is roughly the same, credit card providers have gone all out to cultivate this attractive market, often, the report says, overlooking the black community, which is an equally attractive market.

African-Americans are likely to wield a buying power of about $981 billion by 2010. Currently, more than two million African-American households have incomes of $75,000. Yet only 45% of adult black people in the U.S possessed or used cards in the fall of 2006. That figure corresponds to just 7% of the total adult credit card user population.

Research shows that black communities typically value sound financial advice, are more likely to read the business section of the newspaper, and are more receptive to financial services advertising. But, wait, here’s the punchline, there’s a clear lack of brand advertising specific to the community.

So is it just plain poor market research or oversight from the companies, or does that negative stereotyping have something to do with it, somewhere?