Local credit unions aiming to leverage $4.9B financial base

Denise M. Benjamin

The Guyana Cooperative Credit Union League is seeking to steer the local cooperative credit community in the direction of leveraging its $4.9 billion in financial assets base to raise its profile among local lending institutions by diversifying the range of services which it provides, beyond the conventional loans at low rates of interest, President of the League Denise M. Benjamin told Stabroek Business earlier this week.

Benjamin says the league, an umbrella advisory body to the country’s 30 credit unions is aiming to take the local lending institutions in the direction of raising both its standards and the range of its services to match those that exist in credit unions elsewhere in the Caribbean. According to Benjamin while the league favours the retention by credit unions of their traditional role of responding to the particular needs of its members, it wanted to see the institutions become “more provident and productive” and offer a much wider range of services.

General Manager of the league Dana Nestor told Stabroek Business the credit unions in other parts of the region had