The Cen­tral Fi­nance Fa­cil­i­ty (CFF) is co­or­di­nat­ing the ef­forts of lo­cal cred­it unions to pro­vide re­sources to the Cred­it Union fra­ter­ni­ty in St Vin­cent and the Grenadines.

Ac­cord­ing to CFF Pres­i­dent Leti­tia Teles­ford, “the CFF has found that tar­get­ing cred­it union mem­bers and their fam­i­lies in times of cri­sis, re­duces the threat to this in­dige­nous fi­nan­cial sys­tem of de­mo­c­ra­t­ic man­age­ment and eq­ui­table dis­tri­b­u­tion of sur­plus­es.”

The CFF’s stat­ed that it in­tends to pro­mote this ven­ture as a na­tion­al co­op­er­a­tive ef­fort and is urg­ing cred­it union boards to in­volve the in­di­vid­ual cred­it union mem­bers in mak­ing con­tri­bu­tions.

“Sim­i­lar­ly to Trinidad and To­ba­go, in our neigh­bour­ing West In­di­an ter­ri­to­ries, cred­it unions play an im­por­tant role in the fi­nan­cial sys­tem of St Vin­cent and the Grenadines,” a re­lease from CFF stat­ed yes­ter­day.

“As such, and in the true spir­it of Co­op­er­a­tion among Co­op­er­a­tives, the CFF is seek­ing the co­op­er­a­tion of its mem­ber cred­it unions in pro­vid­ing re­lief and as­sis­tance to the cred­it union move­ment and peo­ple of St Vin­cent and the Grenadines,” it stat­ed.

The CFF said in time, this as­sis­tance will trans­late in­to long-term sup­port so that in­sti­tu­tions on the is­land can be re­stored and be­gin to serve their mem­bers.

In 2018, the CFF es­tab­lished a fund and rel­e­vant pol­i­cy with the in­tent to as­sist Caribbean States which are ex­posed to and threat­ened by nat­ur­al dis­as­ters; in­clu­sive of T&T.

“This fund would pro­vide sup­port to­wards the de­vel­op­ment of pre-emp­tive re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion poli­cies, the pro­vi­sion of psy­cho­log­i­cal sup­port to cred­it union of­fi­cers, staff and mem­bers to as­sist them in cop­ing with the af­ter­math of a nat­ur­al dis­as­ter and the pro­vi­sion of low-cost fi­nanc­ing for en­vi­ron­men­tal ac­tiv­i­ties that in­su­late against cli­mate change and nat­ur­al dis­as­ters,” it stat­ed.

“The fund al­so seeks to pro­vide low-cost fi­nanc­ing for eco­nom­ic and busi­ness ac­tiv­i­ties that re­bound more eas­i­ly from nat­ur­al dis­as­ters and are more re­spon­sive and adapt­able to cli­mate change. The as­sis­tance that can be pro­vid­ed via this fund is nec­es­sary more than ever in this cur­rent dis­as­ter,” the CFF stat­ed.

The CFF was es­tab­lished in May 2002 as the fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tion for co­op­er­a­tives.