MADISON, Wis.–The International Credit Union Regulators’ Network (ICURN) held its annual conference virtually with more than 200 credit union supervisors on six continents.
Carolyn Rogers, secretary General of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, and a former credit union supervisor and ICURN member, was the keynote speaker.
According to ICURN, supervisors observed savings growth in credit unions is occurring in most markets, demand for loans has been soft and there will be profitability challenges ahead as the moratorium on loan repayments come to an end in the third quarter for many countries.
Dave Grace, executive director of ICURN, indicated that “in nearly all markets credit unions have remained open during the crisis and both credit unions and their supervisors have had to quickly adapt to working remotely. While the crisis is far from over and many uncertainties remain, one item that is clear is that this experience will cement the importance of digitization of financial services and credit unions and their supervisors need to prepare for this.”
ICURN said it made the annual conference free to ensure supervisors from all jurisdictions had access to the resources and dialogue with their peers at “this critical time.”
New Member Welcomed
The regional session for the Americas and the Caribbean was held in collaboration with the International Monetary Fund’s Caribbean Technical Assistance Centre. As part of the conference proceedings ICURN published the results of its 2020 Member Baseline Survey comparing 50 critical aspects of credit union supervision across its membership.
Also during the Annual General Meeting, Elaine Byrne, ICURN chairperson, welcomed the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) into membership. As of July 1, NBU will begin supervising the country’s 240 credit unions which serve nearly 500,000 members.
The ICURN board re-elected Byrne of the Central Bank of Ireland, and ICURN members re-elected Lucy Ito, president and CEO of NASCUS; Melanie Beaman, director of UK Deposit Takers with the Bank of England; John Mwaka, CE of SACCO Societies Regulatory Authority in Kenya, and Tim Segerson, deputy director with NCUA to two-year terms as steering committee members of ICURN.