PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad—Credit unions here continue to fight legislation that would transfer regulation to the Central Bank.
Hundreds of members and employees from dozens of credit unions across the country protested outside of Parliament and changed “Bin the bill!” The bill, the Credit Union 2014 and the Cooperative Societies Bill 2014, would move regulation away from the Commissioner of Cooperative Development.
Joseph Remy, head of the Cooperative Credit Union League, told local media it was a historic turnout of persons defending their credit union movement. Remy and other credit union officials said the bill will effectively put many credit unions out of business.
Momentum for the legislation was created by the failure of local Hindu Credit Union, with critics arguing the Commissioner of Cooperative Development is not capable of the necessary oversight. But credit unions said “emphatically” that that failure was an aberration, also noted that the Central Bank had itself failed to stop the crash of CL Financial.