Onei­ka Bushell

On this mo­men­tous 68th an­niver­sary of In­ter­na­tion­al Cred­it Union Day, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Coali­tion of Ser­vices In­dus­tries (TTC­SI) ex­tends our warmest, most heart­felt con­grat­u­la­tions to the Trinidad and To­ba­go Co-op­er­a­tive Cred­it Union League and the vi­brant cred­it union move­ment span­ning our beau­ti­ful twin-is­land na­tion.

In a mod­ern fi­nan­cial land­scape of­ten over­whelmed by glob­al volatil­i­ty, ris­ing costs of liv­ing, and an on­slaught of com­plex com­mer­cial mes­sag­ing, the cred­it union move­ment stands tall as an un­shake­able pil­lar of strength and sta­bil­i­ty. This year’s glob­al theme—"Co­op­er­a­tive Fi­nance: A Steady Sig­nal in a Noisy World"—could not be more fit­ting or time­ly for our na­tion.

While tra­di­tion­al fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions in­creas­ing­ly turn to­ward au­to­mat­ed al­go­rithms and cold, trans­ac­tion­al met­rics that dis­tance them­selves from every­day cit­i­zens, cred­it unions con­tin­ue to broad­cast a clear, de­pend­able, and deeply hu­man sig­nal: peo­ple help­ing peo­ple. You have kept fam­i­lies afloat, fi­nanced small mi­cro-en­ter­pris­es, made home­own­er­ship an af­ford­able re­al­i­ty, and pro­vid­ed a safe har­bour for sav­ings when oth­er com­mer­cial doors were closed to or­di­nary work­ing peo­ple.

What makes the cred­it union move­ment in T&T tru­ly ex­tra­or­di­nary is its deeply root­ed foun­da­tion in our lo­cal cul­ture and his­to­ry, along­side its mas­sive so­cio-eco­nom­ic scale. To­day, our co­op­er­a­tive land­scape proud­ly boasts 129 cred­it unions, en­com­pass­ing over 763,000 mem­ber ac­counts and hold­ing an as­set base of $20 bil­lion. You are a cor­ner­stone of our na­tion's broad­er ser­vices sec­tor and a liv­ing mas­ter­class in eco­nom­ic democ­ra­cy. Every sin­gle mem­ber—from the young stu­dent saver open­ing their very first ac­count to the vet­er­an con­trib­u­tor who has ded­i­cat­ed decades to the move­ment—holds an equal voice, built up­on the sacro­sanct prin­ci­ple of one mem­ber, one vote.

This de­mo­c­ra­t­ic ar­chi­tec­ture en­sures that pow­er is de­cen­tral­ized and that cru­cial de­ci­sions are made around lo­cal ta­bles with the com­mu­ni­ty's best in­ter­ests at heart. Be­yond the bal­ance sheets, mar­gins, and in­ter­est rates lies the true mag­ic of the move­ment, which is its pro­found so­cial soul. You spon­sor youth sports leagues, host home­work cen­ters, back com­mu­ni­ty dis­as­ter re­lief, of­fer life-chang­ing schol­ar­ship pro­grammes, and fos­ter a cul­ture of mu­tu­al care that stitch­es our neigh­bor­hoods to­geth­er.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Coali­tion of Ser­vices In­dus­tries (TTC­SI)is deeply proud to count the Trinidad and To­ba­go Co-op­er­a­tive League as an in­te­gral, dy­nam­ic mem­ber of our in­sti­tu­tion­al fam­i­ly. We rec­og­nize that the ser­vices sec­tor is the true en­gine of growth for our coun­try, and with­in that en­gine, co­op­er­a­tive fi­nance serves as a crit­i­cal spark plug for mi­cro, small, and medi­um en­ter­pris­es.

We are dou­bly ho­n­oured to have the League's Chief Op­er­at­ing Of­fi­cer serve as Pres­i­dent of the TTC­SI, whose lead­er­ship, ex­ec­u­tive acu­men, and tire­less ad­vo­ca­cy have sig­nif­i­cant­ly el­e­vat­ed the pro­file of both the TTC­SI, the cred­it union move­ment and the wider na­tion­al ser­vices sec­tor.

Un­der her guid­ance and the hard-work­ing hands of the League’s lead­er­ship team, the move­ment con­tin­ues to push for pro­gres­sive pol­i­cy re­forms, strate­gic dig­i­tal re­silience, and greater in­te­gra­tion in­to re­gion­al and glob­al mar­kets. A shin­ing tes­ta­ment to this pro­gres­sive vi­sion is the League’s ro­bust shared ser­vices plat­form, which ac­tive­ly serves to min­i­mize the fi­nan­cial and op­er­a­tional bur­dens for in­di­vid­ual cred­it unions across the na­tion.

This in­no­v­a­tive plat­form pro­vides crit­i­cal, in­sti­tu­tion­al-grade sup­port in­clud­ing An­ti-Mon­ey Laun­der­ing and Coun­ter­ing the Fi­nanc­ing of Ter­ror­ism (AML/CFT) Com­pli­ance, com­pre­hen­sive Ac­count­ing and In­ter­nal Au­dit­ing Ser­vices, and full im­ple­men­ta­tion sup­port for In­ter­na­tion­al Fi­nan­cial Re­port­ing Stan­dard 9 (IFRS 9), among oth­er spe­cialised tech­ni­cal so­lu­tions.

By cen­tral­is­ing these com­plex reg­u­la­to­ry and op­er­a­tional needs, the League en­ables even the small­est cred­it unions to re­main com­pli­ant, se­cure, and struc­tural­ly sound with­out drain­ing their com­mu­ni­ty re­sources. Fur­ther­more, the League’s in­flu­ence ex­tends far be­yond our shores; they proud­ly sit on the board of di­rec­tors of the re­gion­al cred­it union body, the Caribbean Con­fed­er­a­tion of Cred­it Unions (CC­CU), and pas­sion­ate­ly ad­vo­cate at that lev­el for the ab­solute best in­ter­ests of our lo­cal cred­it unions and their mem­bers.

As the TTC­SI con­tin­ues to ad­vo­cate for a stronger, more di­ver­si­fied ser­vices econ­o­my—one that cham­pi­ons lo­cal en­ter­prise, en­hances op­er­a­tional stan­dards, and ex­pands our ex­port foot­print—we look to the cred­it union move­ment as a shin­ing bea­con of what is pos­si­ble when Trin­bag­o­ni­ans pool their re­sources, col­lab­o­rate ef­fec­tive­ly, and trust one an­oth­er.

To­day, as we mark In­ter­na­tion­al Cred­it Union Day, we al­so turn our gaze with great pride and an­tic­i­pa­tion to the League’s pres­ti­gious Na­tion­al Awards cer­e­mo­ny, an event that il­lu­mi­nates the very best of what this sec­tor achieves.

To all the awardees gath­er­ing to­day, we salute your ded­i­ca­tion, pas­sion, and un­com­pro­mis­ing pur­suit of dis­tinc­tion. We warm­ly con­grat­u­late those cred­it unions achiev­ing ex­cel­lence in fi­nan­cial per­for­mance, demon­strat­ing clear­ly that sound fis­cal man­age­ment, reg­u­la­to­ry com­pli­ance, pru­dence, and co­op­er­a­tive val­ues go hand in hand to de­liv­er strong re­turns and ab­solute se­cu­ri­ty to mem­bers while nav­i­gat­ing a shift­ing, of­ten un­pre­dictable eco­nom­ic tide.

We com­mend those recog­nised for ex­cel­lence in hu­man re­sources, who un­der­stand that your great­est as­set walks through your doors every morn­ing, and that in­vest­ing in staff well-be­ing, con­tin­u­ous train­ing, and em­pa­thet­ic lead­er­ship builds re­silient in­sti­tu­tions from the in­side out.

Most im­por­tant­ly, we cel­e­brate our out­stand­ing cred­it union youth be­ing ho­n­oured to­day. To these bright young minds and fu­ture lead­ers, you are the heart­beat of to­mor­row, and your en­er­gy, dig­i­tal flu­en­cy, and com­mit­ment to co­op­er­a­tive prin­ci­ples en­sure that this move­ment will thrive with fresh in­no­va­tion for gen­er­a­tions to come.

As we look to­ward the fu­ture, the part­ner­ship be­tween the TTC­SI and the cred­it union move­ment will on­ly deep­en as we col­lec­tive­ly ad­dress the evolv­ing needs of our work­force and econ­o­my. We live in an era where dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion is re­shap­ing how ser­vices are de­liv­ered, yet the cred­it union move­ment has shown an ad­mirable abil­i­ty to adopt mod­ern tech­nolo­gies with­out los­ing the per­son­al touch that de­fines its core iden­ti­ty.

On this spe­cial day, let us re­new our com­mit­ment to the co­op­er­a­tive ideals that have built T&T, ac­knowl­edg­ing that our col­lec­tive wealth is not mere­ly stored in vaults, but is found in the strength of our mu­tu­al trust and shared progress. Hap­py In­ter­na­tion­al Cred­it Union Day 2026 to the League, its lead­er­ship, and every cred­it union mem­ber across our na­tion!

Onei­ka Bushell is the board sec­re­tary of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Coali­tion of Ser­vices In­dus­tries