SAN DIMAS, Calif. — Thanks to credit union pioneer Roy Bergengren's concern over predatory lending around the world back in the 1950s, credit unions are now located in places never dreamed, World Council of Credit Unions President Pete Crear told an international Webcast audience yesterday.
Crear was the guest on Western Corporate FCU's first ever International Credit Union Day broadcast event, moderated by Home & Family Finance Radio host Paul Berry and WesCorp's Walter Laskos, and produced in WesCorp's Overland Studios, in front of a live studio audience.
WOCCU is basically divided into two responsibilities, Crear said: project development and advocacy. Project development WOCCU's most visible function, with employees currently working in 16 countries to introduce or improve credit union services.
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"We have a very small core staff that operates around the globe, dedicated to the credit union movement," Crear said. While WOCCU avoids countries that are too unsettled or war-torn to support a regulated credit system, employees nevertheless often bravely venture forth in potentially dangerous situations.
Some international credit union systems are quite successful. In Sri Lanka, for example, every village has its own credit union, to the tune of 8,000 financial cooperatives in the island country of 20 million. Crear said Sri Lanka credit unions are so important to villagers, each and every citizen is expected to attend the annual meeting, and joked that even hospitalized members are wheeled to the event in their beds.
Webcast audience members were given the opportunity to submit questions for Crear online, which he answered on the air. Questions came from across the U.S. and from foreign countries. A contingency from Belize was watching, and submitted a couple of questions, to the delight of the WesCorp studio audience and organizers.
Crear said the two biggest global challenges credit unions face are a lack of knowledge and understanding about the financial cooperatives on the part of international agencies like the IASB, and the need for credit unions to cooperate with each other.
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