Reuben John calls on credit unions to merge

President of the SVG Credit Union League Reuben John is calling for credit unions in this country to merge in order to compete on the global market.{{more}}

Speaking at a press conference on Monday, John said that the Credit Union sector is the last unit of the financial services sector in the sub region to implement a consolidation agenda.

“We can no longer look at credit union operations within the confines of St. Vincent and the Grenadines. We have to look at credit unions and how they can perform on the global market,” John said.

John expressed the view that credit unions should not be competing against themselves, and said that our market can only adequately support one or two credit unions.

“If we combine our current assets and resources that are disbursed among these nine credit unions, we would see that there would be hardly any single loan in St. Vincent and the Grenadines that the credit union sector would not be able to finance,” he continued.

Echoing this point, Registrar of the Co-operative Societies Cecil Jackson, and President of the Caribbean Confederation of Credit Unions (CCCU) Julian Jack highlighted that they also are looking forward to seeing greater effort being made for the consolidation and merger of co-operative credit unions in this country.

Credit Union Week was held under the theme: “Credit Unions: Together We Can” and will conclude on Sunday with a panel discussion.

A series of events was held to celebrate the week, including church services held throughout the island on Sunday, a press conference to declare the week open, the National Schools’ Co-operative Awards, a Radio Message, customers appreciation day, a public speaking competition, an exhibition and a ‘beach lime’ that will take place tomorrow at Mt. Wynne. (SB)