October is cooperative month

The month of October is also known as “Coop Month”. In the Philippines, particularly in Cebu, cooperative members derive several positive benefits from the operation of cooperatives.  The primary benefit is economic since members get a share of the cooperative’s net surplus by patronizing its services.  A certain percentage of the cooperative’s net surplus is returned to the members after a period of one year usually during their annual general assembly.  It is called patronage refund.

Patronage refund is distributed to the members in proportion to their patronage to the services of the cooperative. The distribution will be in accordance with their cooperative policies based on the cooperative law, the RA 6938.  Through the patronage refund, members are actually saving while using the services of the cooperative. This way cooperative members receive economic benefits according to the degree of their contribution to the growth of the cooperative by way of patronizing its services. Those who do not patronize the services of the cooperative are not entitled to patronage refund.  They are only entitled to interest on their capital invested in the cooperative.

However, aside from the economic benefits, there are also other benefits derived from cooperatives, namely: First, cooperative members develop the habit of thrift and savings. Second, cooperative serves as the training ground for its members in simple business operation, democratic leadership and responsible citizenship.  

To date, some cooperatives have grown tremendously stronger that it can already “compete with rural banks”. Likewise, most cooperatives have already tied-up with Coop-CIBI Infonet On-line Project.  This project is an internet-based link-up with CIBI Information, Inc. wherein one can access various negative data such as court cases, credit cards cancelled and delinquent accounts endorsed for collection and/or reported for “watchlist”. To date, this database contains over 2 million negative data such as, court cases, cards cancelled and delinquent accounts endorsed by cooperatives, cable firms, cellular companies, hardware stores, lending and financing institutions among others.

With Coop-CIBI InfoNet On-line, Coop Primary members can now access and obtain INSTANT credit information on individuals. Furthermore, Coop Primary members can now ACCESS negative information including court cases, credit cards cancelled and delinquent accounts endorsed by other COOP MEMBERS on prospective members, debtors and borrowers anytime, anywhere!

By enrolling to this project, cooperative primaries will surely reduce their risks by having access to negative information before accepting new members and/or approving loans. With this database, credit discipline will surely be instilled to all members of primary cooperatives. Also, Credit Committee can now make sound credit decisions as per Credit Operations Manual. Furthermore, all primary coops can now monitor coop member who are already showing danger signals.

(Mr. Ed Limtingco can be reached at [email protected] or at 0917-7220521)