I un­der­stand and ap­pre­ci­ate the pow­er of cred­it unions.

I know of some­one who made their fi­nan­cial dreams come true be­cause of a cred­it union.

The cred­it union’s rea­son­able in­ter­est rates helped him se­cure a mort­gage and fund his son’s ed­u­ca­tion.

This is how­ev­er not an iso­lat­ed in­ci­dent.

Cred­it unions have saved many lives.

Sad­ly, I have al­so seen the neg­a­tive as­pects of a cred­it union.

A decade ago I was as­signed to cov­er the Com­mis­sion of En­quiry in­to the Hin­du Cred­it Union.

And it was heart­break­ing to see peo­ple sit­ting in the wit­ness box telling of their ex­pe­ri­ences of los­ing the mon­ey they had saved.

One such per­son was Cami­ni Cole who told the Com­mis­sion of En­quiry that she could on­ly get back $500 af­ter she had in­vest­ed her life sav­ings.

Ac­cord­ing to a T&T Guardian re­port dur­ing that hear­ing, Jen­nifer Gob­in said the lack of over­sight by the Com­mis­sion­er of Co-op­er­a­tives in­to the growth and ex­pan­sion of the HCU was one fac­tor to con­sid­er.

“And al­though I may cry, it’s cry­ing out of anger be­cause the peo­ple who have the pow­er vest­ed in them to ac­tu­al­ly make the sit­u­a­tion bet­ter are just not do­ing any­thing about it. Who­ev­er has caused this sit­u­a­tion to hap­pen—while I am not say­ing Mr Harnar­ine sole­ly caused the demise of the HCU—I am say­ing I am cer­tain he en­joys his qual­i­ty of life while my­self and my fam­i­ly con­tin­ue to suf­fer. There’s some un­fair­ness about that,” Gob­in told the com­mis­sion.

Gob­in, who spoke of coun­selling oth­er cash-strapped share­hold­ers of the HCU, said the com­mis­sion was the first fo­rum that al­lowed them to out­line their woes.

She ex­plained that the share­hold­ers could not drum up the mon­ey to pay for a lawyer and had writ­ten to ten at­tor­neys seek­ing rep­re­sen­ta­tion but were re­ject­ed. She said a let­ter was al­so sent to the Min­istry of Fi­nance with a re­quest for fi­nan­cial as­sis­tance to pay for le­gal rep­re­sen­ta­tion but the ad­vice was to seek help from the Le­gal Aid Au­thor­i­ty.

To­day, as we cel­e­brate In­ter­na­tion­al Cred­it Union (ICU) Day, it is the per­fect time for us to con­sid­er that we need to en­sure there is prop­er reg­u­la­tion for our cred­it unions.

Cred­it unions, as fi­nan­cial co-op­er­a­tives, are su­per­vised by the Co-op­er­a­tive De­vel­op­ment Di­vi­sion which is un­der the re­mit of the Min­istry of Youth De­vel­op­ment and Na­tion­al Ser­vice.

It is pe­cu­liar that this min­istry is re­spon­si­ble for cred­it unions.

“The Gov­ern­ment takes the Cred­it Union Move­ment very se­ri­ous­ly. This Mem­o­ran­dum of Un­der­stand­ing (MoU) helps Co-op­er­a­tives, through the Co-op­er­a­tive De­vel­op­ment Di­vi­sion, to tap in­to the ex­per­tise of the Cen­tral Bank of T&T,” Min­is­ter of Youth De­vel­op­ment and Na­tion­al Ser­vice Fos­ter Cum­mings said.

I sin­cere­ly hope this sen­ti­ment holds true.

Re­cent­ly both East­ern Cred­it Union and Ven­ture Cred­it Union have been in the me­dia for var­i­ous rea­sons.

I will not re­turn to what those is­sues are in this space on­ly to say that the hun­dred if not thou­sands of lives in those in­sti­tu­tions as well as the en­tire cred­it union in­dus­try must be prop­er­ly pro­tect­ed.

The col­lapse of an in­sti­tu­tion such as the HCU is some­thing we should nev­er ex­pe­ri­ence again.

There is re­as­sur­ance as there is some mea­sure of self-reg­u­la­tion.

The Co-op­er­a­tive Cred­it Union League of T&T is the le­git­i­mate na­tion­al um­brel­la body for cred­it unions in the coun­try. It rep­re­sents 688,000 mem­bers, 129 cred­it unions, and $17 bil­lion in as­sets.

Its core func­tion in­cludes ad­vo­ca­cy, lob­by­ing, and train­ing and de­vel­op­ment for and on be­half of cred­it unions and their mem­bers.

While cred­it unions of­fer many of the same ser­vices as banks, they pos­sess some dis­tinct ad­van­tages.

Let’s count the ways:

Both fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions of­fer sim­i­lar ser­vices, in­clud­ing chequing and sav­ings ac­counts, au­to loans, and mort­gages, but the main dif­fer­ence is the fact that cred­it unions have mem­bers, not cus­tomers, and these mem­bers own the in­sti­tu­tion.

A bank is a com­pa­ny, and like most com­pa­nies, a bank aims to max­imise prof­its for its share­hold­ers.

A cred­it union is a co­op­er­a­tive—and of­ten not-for-prof­it—in­sti­tu­tion that is owned by its mem­bers who de­mo­c­ra­t­i­cal­ly elect a board of di­rec­tors.

Cred­it unions fo­cus on mem­bers’ needs and pro­vide cred­it at rea­son­able rates. Loans at cred­it unions re­quire lit­tle or no fees while the fees at banks are quite high.

Un­like banks, how­ev­er, cred­it unions on­ly ser­vice mem­bers, who can join the union on­ly if they meet cer­tain el­i­gi­bil­i­ty re­quire­ments such as res­i­den­tial sta­tus, place of em­ploy­ment, or mem­ber­ship in cer­tain civic or­gan­i­sa­tions.

Orig­i­nal­ly de­vel­oped to pro­vide an al­ter­na­tive to for-prof­it banks, cred­it unions con­tin­ue to serve that pur­pose to­day, on both a lo­cal and na­tion­al lev­el.

In­ter­na­tion­al Cred­it Union Day cel­e­brates the spir­it of the glob­al cred­it union move­ment. The day is recog­nised to re­flect up­on the cred­it union move­ment’s his­to­ry, pro­mote its achieve­ments, recog­nise hard work, and share mem­ber ex­pe­ri­ences.

Com­mem­o­rat­ed on the third Thurs­day of Oc­to­ber since 1948, the ul­ti­mate goal of the cred­it union move­ment is to raise aware­ness about the tremen­dous work that cred­it unions and oth­er fi­nan­cial co­op­er­a­tives are do­ing around the world.

The theme this year is “Em­pow­er Your Fi­nan­cial Fu­ture with a Cred­it Union.”