Credit Unions & Post Offices

Want to avoid credit union risk? Get rid of credit unions.

By Greg Allen,banking and finance consultant with GDA Consulting
Aug 3, 2010

Financial regulator Matthew Elderfield and Kieron Brennan, chief executive of the Irish League of Credit Unions: could getting rid of credit unions be at the back of the regulator’s mind? Credit unions will vanish from Ireland over the coming years. A familiar pattern will emerge of small credit unions transferring their business to bigger credit unions. This will continue until what is left is a small number of very large credit unions. These will eventually be sold to much larger international financial institutions until they no longer exist. History, they say, repeats itself. This is exactly what happened to the trustee savings banks.

This is going to come about because of one specific change introduced by the Registrar of Credit Unions in 2009. This requires credit unions to have a non-distributable regulatory reserve of 10% of total assets with effect from 1 October 2009. Currently, most credit unions can comply with this requirement, and because they can achieve the standard, it appears to be reasonable on the face of it.  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

“The credit union movement is going to die slowly but not obviously. We will be safe from a credit union collapse because there won’t be any credit unions. This is the best risk avoidance of all.”

Read full article AccountingNet.ie

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Ireland is reducing its number of Credit Unions while the UK is increasing its number!

Who’s right?

Commission calls for mass mergers among credit unions. Independent.ie

The move to encourage mass mergers among the lending co-operatives could see their number fall to as few as 250 over the next three years, although no official figure has been put on the number of credit unions.

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The Archbishop of Canterbury  has vowed to put payday lenders out of business by using the Church to build up Britain’s network of credit unions. 

The Independent UK

The Church of England has already set up a credit union for its own staff,  which will advise the other co-ops on how to expand their reach.

The Archbishop, a former oil industry executive and a member of the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards, has pointed out that the Church has 16,000 branches in 9,000 communities – more than the banks. In an interview with Total Politics magazine, he said: “I’ve met the head of Wonga and we had a very good conversation and I said to him quite bluntly ‘we’re not in the business of trying to legislate you out of existence, we’re trying to compete you out of existence.’ He’s a businessman, he took that well.”

Read Full Article The Independent UK

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Vancity credit union CED award

  Credit Union

Vancity is a values-based financial co-operative serving the needs of its more than 492,000 member-owners and their communities through 57 branches in Metro Vancouver, the FraserValley, Victoria and Squamish. As Canada’s largest community credit union, Vancity uses its $17.1 billion in assets to help improve the financial wellbeing of its members while at the same time helping to develop healthy, sustainable communities. Member deposits enable the credit union to loan to other members, businesses and organizations that are creating positive economic, social and environmental impact in their communities. In addition, since 1994 Vancity has given more than $238 million to members through dividends and to communities through grants and community investment initiatives. Vancity is a Living Wage employer and a member of the Global Alliance for Banking on Values, a network of the world’s leading sustainable banks sharing a commitment to achieving triple-bottom-line impact through responsible banking practices. More information about Vancity is available at www.vancity.com.

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 Final Statement of the Board of Directors of Newbridge Credit Union 

Final_Statement_of_the_Board_of_Directors of Newbridge Credit Union

Final_Statement_of_the_Board_of_Directors

 

The Church of England is also in the process of setting up a Credit Union

and it wants to use its 16,000 churches to grow the service.

Archbishop wants Sir Hector Sants to lead financial services taskforce

Sants, who resigned from his role as Barclays head of compliance and government and regulatory relations in November due to stress, is said to have been asked by Welby to lead the Archbishop’s Taskgroup on Credit Unions and the Financial Sector.

Read full story here on MoneyMarketing

The Irish post Office Network:

Post Offices

PBFI Statement/Proposal on the Future of Post Offices and An Post – 28-8-17

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The motion below is sponsored by Independent TDs and went before the Dáil on the evening of the 16th Nov 2016.

  • This motion has the potential to save all our local Post Offices of which 500 to 700 are in immediate danger of closure.
  • The PBFI fully supports this motion.
  • We ask all to highlight the upcoming motion on local, national and social media and to please ask your TDs to support the motion.

TDs sponsoring the motion include:

Mattie McGrath, Michael J. Healy-Rae, Michael Collins, Noel Grealish, Michael Harty, Danny Healy-Rae, Michael Lowry.

The Motion before the Dáil on the evening of 16th Nov 2016.

https://docs.google.com/gview?url=https://republicirelandbank.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/m111116.pdf&embedded=truem111116

Tom O’Callaghan from the Independent Postmasters Group speaking about the closures of vital community services, Post Offices, on UTV Ireland.

New Picture (4)
New Picture

 

Kiwi Post Bank (Est. 2001), reveals the potential for An Post and the Post Office Network
A phenomenal Public Banking success story from New Zealand, begun in 2001.

Details:   

Type State-owned enterprise

Founded May 2001

Headquarters Wellington, New Zealand

Key people

Paul Brock (Chief Executive)

Rob Morrison (Chairman of Board of Directors)

Products Banking and financial services

Number of employees 900+

Parent  New Zealand Post

Kiwibank Limited is a wholly owned subsidiary of the state-owned enterprise New Zealand Post Limited. Through Kiwibank, New Zealand Post provides banking services through its PostShops (Post Offices) and joint venture Books & More and Papermate outlets throughout New Zealand. Kiwibank is owned by the New Zealand government and the company’s Board of Directors was chaired by former New Zealand Prime Minister Jim Bolgerfrom 2001–2010. The current Chairman of the Board of Directors is Rob Morrison.

History:

The bank originated from Alliance Party policy during the 1999—2002 term of the Labour-led coalition government.

Jim Anderton revealed in his valedictory speech that after the issue had previously been discussed by cabinet for months, he had spent three hours trying to convince then Finance Minister Michael Cullen.

Annette King told Cullen: “Michael, Jim’s beaten back every argument against the bank we’ve ever put up. For God’s sake, give him the bloody bank.”

Cullen replied: “Oh, all right then.”

Kiwibank launched in 2002 with 211 branches open nationwide by 30 June.

Investments
Kiwibank invested NZ$8m into a 51% shareholding in New Zealand Home Loans, a home loan lender specialising in debt reduction, in June 2006, and increased this in 2008 by a further 25% and took 100% in 2011. New Zealand Home Loans continues to grow offering an alternative to the traditional banking model and have a nationwide network of over 75 franchises.

In 2012 Kiwibank purchased Gareth Morgan Investments (GMI) for an undisclosed sum.

Awards
Kiwibank has won the Sunday Star Times/Cannex banking awards, in 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2012 for offering the best value across their range of products.

Other awards won by Kiwibank include:

Bank of the Year – New Zealand, The Banker, 2009, 2010

Sunday Star-Times’ Bank of the Year, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2012

New Zealand’s Most Trusted Bank, Reader’s Digest Trusted Brand Awards, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2011, 2012

The Kiwibank Model: Postal Banks to Serve Local Communities
by Ellen Brown

Postal banks are now thriving in New Zealand, not as a historical artifact but as a popular new innovation. When they were instituted in 2002, it was not to save the post office but to save New Zealand families and small businesses from big-bank predators. By 2001, Australian mega-banks controlled some 80% of New Zealand’s retail banking. Profits went abroad and were maximized by closing less profitable branches, especially in rural areas. The result was to place hardships on many New Zealand families and small businesses.

The New Zealand government decided to launch a state-owned bank that would compete with the Aussies. They called their new bank Kiwibank after their national symbol, the kiwi bird. But the government team planning the new bank faced major challenges. How could they keep costs low while still providing services in communities throughout New Zealand?

Their solution was to open bank branches in post offices. Kiwibank was established as a subsidiary of the government-owned New Zealand Post. The Kiwibank website states:

Back in 2002, we launched with a thought: New Zealand needs a better banking alternative—a bank that provides real value for money, that has Kiwi values at heart, and that keeps Kiwi money where it belongs—right here, in New Zealand.

So we set up shop in PostShops throughout the country, putting us in more locations than any other bank in New Zealand literally overnight (without wasting millions on new premises!).

Suddenly, New Zealanders had a choice in banking. In an early “move your money” campaign, they voted with their feet. In an island nation of only 4 million people, in its first five years Kiwibank attracted 500,000 customers away from the big banks. It consistently earns the nation’s highest customer satisfaction ratings, forcing the Australia-owned banks to improve their service in order to compete.

Information from Wikipedia and Ellen Brown.

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