Case Studies

Chris Franks | CUA | Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka Women’s Cooperative 20th Anniversary

cfranks3 ‘Inspirational’ is the only way to describe the Women’s Cooperative, an organisation driven by the poorest women living in communities across Sri Lanka, which changes lives and empowers those most in need by providing savings accounts and small loans. The Cooperative has just celebrated its 20th anniversary and is without doubt a success story to inspire every woman and attract the praise of every man around the world.

I attended the 20th anniversary celebrations at the invitation of World Council of Credit Unions and the Credit Union Foundation of Australia (CUFA) to see first-hand the program that Australian Credit Unions, including CUA, fund and to meet and congratulate some of the 10,000 women from all over Sri Lanka who came together in 2009 to mark their achievements.

Graham Raward | Gateway Credit Union | Cambodia

Australian Credit Union hands on in Cambodia

graward1 Graham Raward Gateway Credit Union I recently had the incredibly good fortune of being asked by CUFA if I would represent Gateway Credit Union and spend a week in Cambodia to complete a due diligence review of fledging credit unions. Having been interested in development work for many years, this was the opportunity of a lifetime and one which I readily accepted.

CUFA had been approached for some loan pool funding by a recently established credit union federation called Farmer’s Life Improvement and Future Life Youth Organisation (FLIFLY). Prior to committing to providing any funding, it was necessary to undertake a due diligence on the 15 credit unions that FLIFLY support. Seven of the credit unions were located in Kandal Province (just south of Phnom Penh) and the remainder in Kompong Thom (3 hours north of Phnom Penh).

Jonathan Dent | Cuscal Limited | Timor Leste

Introducing a Simplified Accounting System to Credit Unions in Timor Leste

jdent1 Two of the key challenges for credit unions in Timor Leste are bookkeeping and maintaining accurate and complete financial records. Financial cooperatives provide a safe place for members to save their money and these funds are then pooled together to provide loans to members. It is imperative that the credit unions keep accurate financial reports and records to track member account balances, loans outstanding, and interest payable. Financial transparency provides members with peace of mind of the safety of their savings and trust in their credit union.

To help small credit unions and self help groups (informal savings and loans groups) to maintain up to date records of their financial transactions, CUFA introduced a simple accounting system to help credit union staff with no or minimal accounting knowledge to record the financial transactions of their credit union. This simplified system was developed by Jonathan Dent, of the Finance team within CUSCAL, who volunteered his time to work with CUFA.