Irish Minister Visits North of England Credit Unions

Thursday 25 January 2024

The Irish Minister of State, Seán Fleming with responsibility for financial services, credit unions and insurance, was in the North of England on 15 March where he met with representatives of British credit unions.

The exchange was organised by the Swoboda Research Centre (formerly operating as the Centre for Community Finance Europe), which was set up in 2017 to produce, facilitate and stimulate action-orientated research that supports the credit union movement.

Along with colleagues from the Ministry of Finance and the Irish Consulate overseas trade teams, the Minister heard about the similarities and differences between the Irish and the British credit union movements as well as the Swoboda Research Centre’s thoughts on green lending.

The group discussed credit unions high loan-to-savings ratios relative to the average in Ireland, and mortgage lending. Head of Member Engagement at ABCUL, John Haslam, joined the meeting for a conversation on strategic mergers.

Earlier in the year ABCUL launched a Strategic Merger Taskforce (SMT) to explore the potential for a more strategic approach to mergers to develop the sustainability, relevance and purpose of the credit union sector in Great Britain.

“I was pleased to share with Seán an update on ABCUL’s progress and to learn from his experience how more mergers form stronger and more sustainable credit unions,” John Haslam said. “The SMT has had learnt directly from a credit union in the Republic of Ireland, to provide merger cases studies from the international credit union movement. These case study presentations provided useful insight into how a merger can be used to strategically to develop credit unions and provide an honest discussion on the lessons learnt from going through a merger.”

Commenting on the visit, Seán Fleming said: “I very much enjoyed meeting members of the British credit union movement. It’s important we share our learnings and experience to build relationships and grow. My thanks to the Swoboda Research Centre for organising this visit, to Manchester Credit Union for hosting, and to No1 CopperPot Credit Union and ABCUL for participating.”

Director of Development at the Swoboda Research Centre, Nick Money said: “The Swoboda Research Centre was delighted to facilitate Minister Fleming’s visit to the UK and to discuss the similarities and differences between British and Irish credit unions. We’re really pleased that the Minister will be speaking at our conference on credit unions and green lending in Dublin, next month on the 20 May”.