The Chief Executive Officer Mr Pete Crear of World Council of Credit Union (WOCCU) visited N Delhi headquarters of National Federation of Urban Cooperative Banks and Credit Societies(NAFCUB) on Friday.
In his short speech Mr Pete exhorted UCBs executives and Chairmen to come out of negativity and despair and fight for what you want. “You cannot fight regulators as they are bound to be there. We can fix our goal and work towards achieving them”, the World Body CEO said.
Mr Pete Crear said that Urban Banks should focus on the changing behavior of consumer and try to tap that. A young guy comes who wants loan for car, offer him the best deal. If you catch them young they will be yours all their lives, he added.
You cannot avoid taxes. Though Obama government has announced tax sops for Credit Unions in USA, there is no point asking for tax exemption as it is a universal feature of economic life. What you can do is find out ways so that you can avoid major portion of tax burden. In Canada even children movement is taxed. Fighting regulators won’t help, Mr Pete added.
New trends are emerging as for the first time large number of people are migrating to city life. Urban banks and credit unions have to make best use of this situation, Pete added.
Talking of the year 2012 Mr Pete said that UN has declared it a year of cooperative when countries will have to pass resolution to strengthen this movement. We have to prepare ourselves so that our best foot is put forward, we do lots of commerce and tell the world of our contribution to societies.
Enlisting the various roles played by WOCCU across the globe, Mr Pete Crear said it helps develop existing cooperative and credit movement and also helps begin this movement afresh as in Afghanistan.
Welcoming Mr Pete on the occasion Mr Subhas Chandra Gupta, Chief Executive, NAFCUB said that that unfortunately eighty percent of UCBs are located in five states of the country. He felt the need for greater professionalization and a freedom from low capital formation for Urban Cooperative banks.
The former Chief Executive and expert on Urban Cooperative Banks Mr D Krishna compared the Indian scenario with American and said that USA has one third of India’s population yet it has about 16 thousand credit unions. While India has less than 1700 UCBs, he added.
Mr Krishna wanted to bring some forty thousand credit societies operating in India to the mainstream and sought guidance from the CEO of WOCCU.
Speaking on the occasion Mr Anil Khanna, heading North India for Saraswat Bank, said that urban poverty is the main challenge staring UCBs. He also talked of Saraswat Bank targeting to have 300 branches soon.
Mr Narender , Asst CEO of Indraprastha bank felt that there are lots of restrictions on types of loan UCBs can give. Such restrictions are not there in case of private commercial banks and this differential treatment should go away, he added.
Yatendra Mallik ,Chairman of Keshav Sahkari Bank said that cooperation and cooperative is in our blood and our first Prime Minister Jawahar Lal Nehru had vision of a successful cooperative. Unfortunately there are too many restrictions we have to work through.
Mr O P Sharma, Chairman of Haryana State Urban Cooperative Banks Federations lamented the imposition of income tax on UCBs in year 2006. Mr A K Chauhan, vice chairman, Mahamedha Urban Coop Bank felt that urban poverty is greater than rural poverty and facilitators are needed to smoothen the functioning of UCBs.