China CU Representatives Visit The League

Visitors Learn About the U.S. Credit Union Movement

(Article appeared on CCUL, December 11, 2007)

The People’s Bank of China (PBC), World Council of Credit Unions (WOCCU), and representatives from China’s Guizhou Provincial Rural Credit Cooperative Union visited the League’s Rancho Cucamonga offices and Arrowhead Credit Union this week to learn more about how local credit unions are supported by the League and corporate credit unions as well as the industry’s regulatory system.

The delegation’s visit to the United States is part of a new development initiative between WOCCU and PBC, which was launched in China earlier this year.

On Thursday, following a morning visit with representatives of the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) to learn about how federal credit unions are regulated, the delegates heard presentations from League President and CEO Bill Cheney; League VP of Research, Communications, and Public Affairs Lucy Ito; and Financial Service Centers Cooperative, Inc. (FSCC) CEO Sarah Canepa Bang. Cheney provided an explanation of the League’s service to member credit unions, touching on the four components of advocacy, education, information, and leadership. Ito spoke about the U.S. credit union system, and Bang provided an overview of FSCC’s affiliation with the League and the company’s shared branching function on an international level.

In the afternoon, Arrowhead Credit Union President and CEO Larry Sharp gave a presentation on the history of credit unions, their structure and purpose, and background on Arrowhead’s operation. The visitors also toured three of Arrowhead's local branches.

The rural credit cooperatives (RCCs) have been the primary source of financial services for people in the Chinese countryside for more than 50 years. Nationally, there are about 25,000 RCCs, serving about 250 million households.

The delegation includes the board chairman and three executives of the Guizhou Provincial Rural Credit Cooperative Union, which serves as a combination league and corporate credit union for rural credit cooperatives (RCCs) in Guizhou, a very poor province in southwestern China. Altogether, the Guizhou RCCs (which now call themselves "Guizhou Rural Credit Unions") have about 2,000 retail outlets and assets of nearly $9 billion.

The PBC is the Chinese central bank, which, among its other roles, is responsible for developing government policy on credit and financial services. WOCCU’s joint project with PBC will assess the RCC system in rural China and to help the central bank develop its policy framework for rural finance.