President of the The Caribbean Confederation of Credit Unions (CCCU) Aaron Moses has revealed that Dominica has one of the highest credit union penetration rates in the world.
“In fact there are many around the world who are curious as to how is it that has been achievable in Dominica,” he said at an annual board meeting of the CCCU on Thursday. “I have searched for answers and was told on one occasion that it is because on the birth of every kid, one of the gifts that is given is membership in a credit union.”
Manager of the Dominica’s Co-operatives Societies League, Aaron Dalrymple said one of the reasons for the country’s high penetration in the region is that, “our credit union is from the community base, so therefore every member within the community can be on the credit union…”
“We have a committed volunteers, volunteers who have been serving for 30-40 years in the credit union, credit unions who have given themselves and time freely for the advancement of the movement, so because of this we are strong in penetration and in terms of movements on a whole,” he said.
Dalrymple has revealed that this year, “we have moved for our capital base our total assets to $630-million and our growth in that regard is nine percent.”
“Our membership continues to increase and now we are nearing 68,000 members …so we are doing quite well,” he said.
Moses also said that although the Caribbean is going through extremely challenging time and the economic recession has negatively impacted its citizens and policy makers.
“But despite the challenges the credit union movement has been achieving growth, that is because of the unique structure of our organization,” he stated.
Moses stated further that, the CCCU is currently recognized as the second largest mobilizer of savings in most of the countries in which it operates.
“We have the ability to mobilize voluntary small savers and in the process render people who previously did not have access to the traditional financial institution credit worthy,” he said. “Through our systematic method of savings, given the democratic nature of our organization where its member owned, member-center and every individual has the ability to participate actively in decision making process of our organization that renders us distinct from the other financial institutions across the region.”
One of the critical values of the credit union movement, he said, is that the organization is community-oriented.
“We actively participate and contribute to the growth and development of our community, primarily because we mobilize local resources to be used locally,” Moses stated.
Yea boy; Dominica is always the leader in some crap, we are always at the front running; everybody else, every nation on earth is always trailing behind us; they are unable to catch us running, because they lack the technique and the technology we used to get out in front running.
Nevertheless, by some means or the other the world we always lead seems to always find a way get to the finish line, ahead of us Dominicans who are always leads indefinitely; No wonder we never get to finish the race, because we always finish exactly where we started. We start at point A, heading to point B, the next thing we know we finish precisely at point A.
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah!
That is why we are always the leader of nothing!
I laughed at your joke but gave you thumbs down – off topic LOL
No joke, can you imagine we start at point A, and finish exactly at point A, where we started. I wonder if freeze before we start running!
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!
Kudos to the NCCU. See what good comes out of people having ownership of something. The members own the CU, they run the CU to make sure it is beneficial for them. Wish this was practiced all over the country. Dominica and it’s people would be in a much better position.
The NCCU need to reduce the mortgage and education loan rate to 6.5% and 7% respectively every other banking institution in dominica is offering lower rates . Members take hid at the next annual general meeting please submit to the NCCU.
saying hail to the likes of Sister Alicia, Mr. Elwin, Mr Dorival and Mr Savarin and others who have been stalwarts in the developmental process
Credit Unions are community based institutions and much friendlier and easy to deal with than the banks in Dominica. Where else would we do our business
Why dont every thing work like the credit union
We are small but our communities are basically isolated. To do simple banking in Roseau for most rural Dominicans in rural areas would take a whole day, so if there is a CCU in your community it is very likely one would use it, thus the penetration. Also the CCU have been a pretty safe place to store money. The CCUs have great reputation and Goodwill in that regard. To date in Dominica, savers have not lost money in the CCU due to theft, bad management etc. That has a part to play in people’s acceptance of the CCUs as safe alternative to homes and to traditional banks in Roseau.
Yes the other two observations in the article are also true. But i think they stem from the above.
Brilliant observation TIMTIM. I agree with you on this.
Dominica has one of the highest penetration rates in the world yet a tiny population says Mr. Moses.
Is there need for IVF? Seems so.
Nice twist on this one you are witty concerned . humor is good therapy .Glad DNO allowed this one or did it slip thru? I hope am not a wistle bower sort of here and they soon go beyond moderation and delete it. Lol!