Co-operative News
Will US lead way on co-operation?
Global politics are arguably in their most interesting, and most fluid, situation in the last 60 years. Following the financial crash and recession, it is unclear how politics will bed down. But it is unlikely they will return to ‘normal’. This creates opportunities for the co-operative movement – in terms of shaping both the new [...]
An open letter to the Parliamentary Group on Financial Mutuals
Open letter to Cathy Jamieson MP, Jonathan Evans MP and Baroness Maddock, joint chairs of the All–Party Parliamentary Group on Building Societies and Financial Mutuals.
Dear joint chairs,
Firstly may I congratulate you and your colleagues for your membership and leadership of the all-party group. It has previously published an important piece of work on [...]
End of year message, 2010
Farewell to 2010. It has been an odd sort of year, with a mix of good and bad news for the mutual and co-operative sector. The good news includes a continuing strong performance from the Co-operative Group, particularly from CFS, and early benefits from integration with Britannia and Somerfield. Co-operatives UK’s new chief executive, Ed [...]
Ireland’s lessons for mutuals everywhere
The collapse of the Irish economy is pretty impressive – if the word ‘impressive’ can be understood to indicate magnitude and without any positive connotations whatsoever. From bust to boom and then back to bust again. Time will tell whether several southern European economies, plus perhaps some in central and Eastern Europe, will join Ireland [...]
Is it farewell to Kent Reliance?: Co-operative News
I hope that by the time you read this, the proposal to transfer the operating business of the Kent Reliance Building Society to a new PLC banking subsidiary will have been defeated in a members’ vote. There is a reasonable chance this will happen, as it only requires one in four voting members to reject [...]
Financial mutuals hit new difficulties: Co-operative News
The relationship between cause and effect is usually a fascinating one – and often also a cruel one. Severe distress and economic hardship currently being felt in the villages of Andhra Pradesh in Southern India is a case in point.
Many small businesses are on the point of ruin because their credit lines are drying up. [...]
Regulating markets: Co-operative News
Former Cuban president Fidel Castro spoke to his country a few days ago to signal an historic shift away from the direction adopted since the establishment of a communist government in 1959. As part of wide-ranging economic reforms, co-operatives are to play a key role as a means of moving from a state-led, planned system.
Fidel [...]
Beware new forms of mutual carpetbaggers: Co-operative News
As this is Co-operative News I wonder if I can be cheeky and use this column to request some co-operation and collaboration? I have been wrestling with a problem for several weeks, which I cannot resolve. Please, dear reader, suggest your own explanations.
My unresolvable riddle is how can a private equity investor extract profit from [...]
Ownership structures matter: Co-operative News
Ownership structures matter. It is not merely a matter of fairness or politics – structures influence and drive behaviour.
If anyone doubts that, think about one of the statistics quoted in Jonathan Michie’s just published study on financial mutuals*. Twenty five per cent of senior managers at the Woolwich Building Society left within a year and [...]
CFS brings home the profits: Co-operative News
It’s been a good few weeks for Co-operative Financial Services. The highlight has been winning the prestigious FT Sustainable Bank of the Year award, against stiff competition from 110 established banks.
But also very significant has been the just released figures on complaints, which show that The Co-operative Bank had the lowest number of complaints [...]
