International Day of Cooperatives
QUEZON CITY – More than 100 staff of the NATCCO gathered on July 5 at the NATCCO Headquarters to celebrate with the rest of the worldwide co-op sector the International Day of Cooperatives.
QUEZON CITY – More than 100 staff of the NATCCO gathered on July 5 at the NATCCO Headquarters to celebrate with the rest of the worldwide co-op sector the International Day of Cooperatives.
Formalities began with Will Carino of the NATCCO Knowledge Resource Center briefing the staff in attendance facts about the International Day.
Next, Mr. Thomas Sedong Oh, Technical Advisor of the Association of Asian Confederation of Credit Unions, briefed NATCCO staff on the co-ops in Korea.
Mr. Oh recalled how Korea rose up from poverty after the Korean war in the 1950s to become a tiger economy that it is today.
“There is only one co-op federation in Korea according to law – NACUFOK or the National Credit Union Federation of Korea — and the structure is very simple having only two tiers. The federation is composed of 90 credit unions, operates 10 branches, and has 620,” he said.
He revealed that most of the 620 staff work in the federation’s insurance business. “Insurance is the biggest money-maker of NACUFOK,” he said.
As the “apex” federation of Korea, NACUFOK is into business and advocacy.
NACUFOK’s departments include credit union research, marketing, insurance, investments, education, consignment services (where the federation obtains products of primary co-ops and sells to the public at a commission).
Interestingly, NACUFOK has authority to audit credit unions, as it has three basic functions: Association, Business and Supervision. In Association, it unites co-ops; in Business, it operates enterprises and services that enable co-ops to serve their members better, and in Supervision, it regulates the sector.
Korean co-ops remit to the federation 0.2% of savings.
But the biggest boost in expansion of NACUFOK was when it began offering IT services in the early 90s.
After applause from the staff, Mr. Oh was followed by NATCCO CEO Sylvia Paraguya, who told everyone the meaning of working for the co-op sector and the value of NATCCO’s Vision to become an “integrated network” after the Korean model.
Recognizing NACUFOK as the largest federation that is a member of ACCU, she said: “NATCCO and Nacufok have almost the same number of member cooperatives and individual members, but assets of NACUFOK stands at US$85 Billion, while NATCCO co-ops is US$4 B.
Even if the entire co-op sector in the Philippines will integrate, that would amount to only US$10 Billion.”
She added that in terms of assets, Korea and Thailand and Vietnam are tops, while the Philippines is next.
She explained the details of Korea as an integrated network, and that Korean model is the aspiration of the NATCCO Network
Thus, the NATCCO service menu is similar to that of Korea.
In a foreboding of the medium term directions of NATCCO, she said: “NACUFOK earns more from insurance than credit. That’s why when we look at integrating, we are looking how credit and insurance can go together. When a country develops, the co-ops are more awash with money and co-ops do not borrow and insurance becomes more important.”
She told the staff, who are mostly in their twenties and thirties, that in Korea, every co-op is required to affiliate with one federation, unlike the Philippines which is very complicated. She was referring to the Philippine Cooperative Center, of which NATCCO is a member and is considered to be the “apex federation” of the Philippine co-op sector. The PCC has four pillars – Finance, Service, Production & Marketing, and Education & Advocacy.
She said: “NATCCO is very active in the Finance Pillar.”
NATCCO pushes Information Technology because IT led to the explosive growth of Korean co-ops.
“I hope you will understand the meaning of your work in terms of improved lives. Kasi kung hindi natin yan makita (because if you don’t see it) . . . you will only find meaning in what you are doing if you see the impact on the people’s improved lives!”
At the forum that followed, it was clear that what impressed NATCCO staff foremost was how the NACUFOK can impose sanctions and standards on Korean cooperatives, and that credit unions would abide.
This is still a far off dream in the Philippines.
Paraguya thanked Mr. Oh for giving NATCCO staff a glimpse of the Korean co-ops.