Credit unions: Don't call us small

WITH the credit union movement boasting over 600,000 members and an asset base of some $10 billion, a call is being made to stop referring to the movement as a small enterprise.

President of the Palo Seco Credit Union, Alvin Stephenson, who made the call, also advocated for a name change to the Ministry of Labour and Small Enterprise Development under which the movement falls.

He addressed the dinner and awards function of the Co-operative Credit Union Movement at Achievors Banquet Hall, San Fernando last week Thursday, after Palo Seco was voted the Most Outstanding Credit Union overall, for the third consecutive year.

In his acceptance speech, Stephenson addressed Labour Minister Jennifer Baptiste-Primus who used that platform to announce her departure from active politics.

“I just want to suggest to our line minister, as she would have indicated to us that she is preparing to demit office, I would encourage her to pass the baton on and, when you are passing the baton, change the name of the Ministry of Labour and Small Enterprise Development to the Ministry of Labour, if you chose to maintain labour, and call it Enterprise Development.

“I don’t like this name ‘small enterprise development’ when the credit union movement is under this ministry.

“We are no longer a small enterprise. We are a large institution. Our membership is more than 600,000 with assets of over $10 billion,” he said.

Stephenson said the success of this credit union did not come without challenges, as they were severely affected by the closure of Petrotrin last November. At the time of the closure, Palo Seco had some 748 members working at Petrotrin with total shares of some $29,368,692.57 and loans amounting to $23,303,967.51.

“But we rose above those challenges and encouraged our membership to look at the bright side as an opportunity to create wealth.”

He said they provided the opportunity by having conversations with stakeholders to ensure members and shareholders got the best return on investment.

“So, we take these challenges as an opportunity to do better, and we would have stood and withstood those challenges. Our success would have been based on risk and taking risks. I always say to my team that there is no investment, absolutely none, that is without risks.

“We would have taken a lot of risks, because the financial service sector is like that. You must take risks, but we do a careful evaluation of the risks that we take.”