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11th
Feburary 2010
Credit
Unions Impacted
A
bill that will have significant impact
on grass roots financial organizations
like credit unions seems to have gone
through the House of Assembly Tuesday
without a murmur from credit unions and
other cooperatives on the island.
This bill, the Financial Services Regulatory
Authority bill, when implemented will
put in place a number of provisions designed
to ensure adequate systems accountability
and regulations within the financial services
sector in Saint Lucia.
In short, what this means is that this
Regulatory Authority will be the one regulating
the operations and giving supervision
to financial institutions in the country
like banks and credit unions, something
never before seen or heard of in Saint
Lucia.
An immediate danger of that to credit
unions is the possibility of credit unions
being treated by this Authority as banks,
two financial institutions Saint Lucians
know very well as being different from
each other in several ways.
It stands to reason that on the off-chance
the Authority keeps the spirit of the
cooperative movement alive in its role
as protector of the country’s financial
landscape, there will still be consequences
impacting on credit unions, hence the
reason why we are mystified about the
deafening silence from credit unions as
this bill goes through parliament on its
way to becoming law.
But while we believe credit unions should
have been more aware of this bill and
its introduction in parliament so as to
make sure that the foundation on which
the cooperative movement stands would
in no way be compromised by the contents
of this bill, we condemn strongly the
government abject failure in generating
national discussion on it.
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The
people, the very poor amongst us who, incidentally,
are the back bone of the cooperative movement
in the country have no idea that the credit
union of which they are members of could find
itself undergoing changes in how it does business
with them.
While there are people who may think that credit
unions are smaller banks in a sense, the difference
or the concept of credit unions is that they
are cooperative financial institutions owned
and controlled by their members and operated
for the purpose of promoting thrift, providing
credit at reasonable rates and furthering community
development or sustaining international development
on local levels.
These not for-profit cooperative institutions,
which credit unions are, should be regulated
as such and not be regulated as for-profit institutions
like banks. This alone means that the mandates
of banks and credit unions are different.
We know that the Saint Lucia Credit Union League
did meet with both the past administration and
the Stephenson King administration asking for
it to be part of consultations where the bill
was concerned, this never happened. A letter
from The Eastern Caribbean Central Bank some
time ago to the government of the day to include
the League in the consultation process still
did not give the League a pass into the process.
Simply, the people who the bill will impact
most on have no idea what it entails, something
the government must be held responsible for.
(M.G.)
Discuss
Story
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