JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Friday, July 11, 2025

CFF welcomes new measures

by

Kevon Felmine
2101 days ago
20191009
Central Finance Facility

Central Finance Facility

Melissa Williams

With the gov­ern­ment’s pro­pos­al to in­crease co­op­er­a­tive so­ci­eties’ trans­fer of shares payable to death ben­e­fi­cia­ries and au­tho­rise them to cash cheques, the Cen­tral Fi­nance Fa­cil­i­ty (CFF) be­lieves that the co­op­er­a­tive move­ment is fi­nal­ly be­ing tak­en se­ri­ous­ly.

Ac­cord­ing to CFF pres­i­dent Leti­tia Teles­ford, mem­bers are elat­ed that there are in­di­ca­tions that the Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment has re­mem­bered the cred­it union move­ment. With the prospects of the move­ment in­creas­ing its stake in the lo­cal fi­nance in­dus­try, Teles­ford en­cour­aged cred­it union lead­ers to par­tic­i­pate in the up­com­ing ‘Thought Lead­er­ship Ses­sion’ with Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Util­i­ties, Robert Lee Hunte, who will speak on the na­tion­al bud­get.

The Oil­fields Work­ers’ Trade Union is card­ed to speak on its ac­qui­si­tion of the Guaracara Re­fin­ery Com­pa­ny in Pointe-a-Pierre.

“For years, cred­it unions have been clam­our­ing for en­hanced reg­u­la­tions, an in­crease in the death ben­e­fit lim­it and the pow­er of cred­it unions to en­cash gov­ern­ment checks and to pay util­i­ty bills on be­half of their mem­bers.

“Fi­nal­ly, we are be­ing tak­en se­ri­ous­ly. While we are en­cour­aged by these an­nounce­ments, we know that there is a long road ahead,” said Teles­ford.

She added, “As a move­ment of some 400 cit­i­zens with $15 bil­lion in as­sets, we have long sought to be a re­spect­ed part­ner of Gov­ern­ment in na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment.

“At the CFF, we want our mem­bers to own and op­er­ate busi­ness­es and con­trol the en­ter­pris­es from whom we buy. The 2019/2020 Bud­get sig­nals the be­gin­ning of our jour­ney to­wards these goals.”

Dur­ing Mon­day’s na­tion­al bud­get read­ing, Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert an­nounced the pro­pos­al to amend the Co-op­er­a­tive So­ci­eties’ Act to in­crease the cur­rent lim­it of $5,000 im­posed on the trans­fer of shares or in­ter­est payable to a nom­i­nat­ed ben­e­fi­cia­ry up­on the death of a mem­ber to $50,000.

The mea­sure is ex­pect­ed to take ef­fect from Jan­u­ary 1, 2020.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, steps are to be tak­en to al­low cred­it unions to of­fer ser­vices sim­i­lar to the banks, in­clud­ing the pay­ment of util­i­ty bills.

A new in­de­pen­dent au­thor­i­ty to gov­ern the co-op­er­a­tive sec­tor will be es­tab­lished to reg­u­late fi­nan­cial co-op­er­a­tives and re­port to the Min­istry of Fi­nance.

When es­tab­lished, fi­nan­cial cred­it unions will be able to of­fer bank­ing or qua­si-bank­ing ser­vices, such as the en­cash­ment of cheques and teller ser­vices.

The De­posit In­sur­ance Cor­po­ra­tion will be re­quired to main­tain a fund to meet any emerg­ing li­a­bil­i­ties of the sec­tor.


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored