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The Asian Confederation of Credit Unions appointed Elenita V. San Roque as its new chief executive who took office on 1 September following the retirement of the current chief executive, Ranjith Hettiarachchi. Ms San Roque says she aims to increase integration between credit unions networks.
Elenita V. San Roque has been working for the ACCU for 19 years. In 1995 she joined the association as Manager for Member Services responsible to assist ACCU member organisations in developing and improving their movement’s institutional capacity. This involved developing credit union business solutions in response to credit union current challenges. ACCU now offers 21 credit union business solutions for members.
“In the last decade, we have developed 21 credit union business solutions that are foundations for credit union development. What is left for us is to ensure that credit unions deploy these solutions. Positive impacts are demonstrated by credit unions that have applied the solutions. There is a greater need for integration whereby the federations of credit unions manage the growth and sustainability of the network,” said Elenit V. San Roque.
She added: “ACCU will work closely with our national federations to realise our goal, if not full, at least high level of integration in the years to come. We envisioned that the federations would be able to manage the liquidity, lending services, human resource, financial performance, and risks of the network. This is our future direction for Asian credit unions - integration of the credit union networks.”
While working for ACCU, Ms San Roque has also started the Asian Development Education Program in 1999, which has helped development educators across Asia improve their skills and share best practices. So far 503 development educators has been certified under this programme.
Ms San Roque has a background in accounting and between 1990 and 1994 she has been providing external auditing service and management advisory services to co-operatives, credit unions and private businesses.
Referring to the challenges faced by credit unions, she said: “Safety and soundness of credit unions is still an issue. It is the result of poor governance. ACCU will provide support for members to help them build a solid foundation for the unification of the credit union network through sharing of resources, standardised operations, contractual solidarity and strategies of internal governance.
“ACCU will assist members on credit union branding, monitoring, stabilization fund, governance certification, human resources certification, certifications for credit union directors and those with positions of trust within the credit union.”
