The Global Credit Union Podcast

We take a deep dive into World Council of Credit Unions’ strategic focus on climate resilience and sustainable finance this month.

We start at Sicredi Pioneira, a credit union based in Nova Petropolis, Brazil that is leading the way on solar energy. You’ll hear all about how they are helping members access financing for solar projects, and how they are leading by example as well—powering many of their own credit unions with 100 percent clean energy from the sun.

World Council wants to help more credit unions get to where Sicredi Pioneira is today. Thom Belekevich, World Council Director of Member Services, shares more on our strategy to promote climate resilience and sustainable finance across the global credit union movement.

World Council of Credit Unions (WOCCU) joined the rest of the world in celebrating International Women’s Day on March 8. And since this is also Women’s History Month, WOCCU is focusing this episode on the ways our organization helps women in the global credit union community through our programs and projects, and how we’re doing in terms of gender equality within our own organization.

We’ll hear from a variety of voices, including the women who lead WOCCU, a woman who has made strides to become the leader she is today because of the Global Women’s Leadership Network, the women who have assisted on WOCCU international projects focused on women’s initiatives, and even from one of the men in our organization who has led on women’s issues.

With February 2023 marking the somber one-year anniversary of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, we look back on how several projects and entities have worked with Ukrainian credit unions to keep them resilient and open to members. 

That includes the World Council of Credit Unions/USAID Credit for Agriculture Producers' (CAP) Project, which works with partner credit unions to ensure their member farmers have loans, so they can continue producing food during the war. Ivan Vyshnevskiy, a Ukrainian citizen who serves as Deputy Chief of Party for the CAP Project, talks about how project staff have not only helped those credit unions continue to lend, but to even help agricultural lending outperform every other credit union loan sector since the war began.

Plus, Mike Reuter, Executive Director of Worldwide Foundation for Credit Unions (WFCU), discusses the response from credit union leaders around the world who have donated nearly $2 million to WFCU's Ukrainian Credit Union Displacement Fund. More than $600,000 from that fund has already been sent to Ukraine to help credit unions maintain operations and to provide needed support to the farmers themselves.

Finally, Anatoli Murha, Senior Vice President of Ukrainian Selfreliance Federal Credit Union and a member of the Ukrainian-American Credit Union Association, discusses the massive outpouring of financial support from the Ukrainian-American credit union sector, and the difference that has made in Ukraine. 

After an optimistic start to the year, the global credit union movement was hit with multiple crises, including Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine and soaring inflation worldwide. In this final episode of 2022, we look back at how World Council of Credit Unions helped its members navigate those pressures, while still offering education and networking events and managing to boost the livelihoods of vulnerable populations in Ukraine and elsewhere. We also look ahead to 2023 with plans based on a new strategy focused on growing credit union digitalization, climate and sustainability solutions and building resilient livelihoods.  

This month’s featured guest is Diana Dykstra, who was just named Chair of World Council of Credit Unions’ Board of Directors in July. A six-year veteran of the WOCCU Board, Dykstra has more than 40 years of experience in leading top organizations in the financial services industry.

She is currently the President and CEO of the California and Nevada Credit Union Leagues, and previously served as President and CEO of San Francisco Fire Credit Union and Coasthills Federal Credit Union. During her tenure as Senior Vice President at Golden 1 Credit Union, Diana led her team to develop the prototype of the now successful Credit Union Direct Lending—more commonly known CU Direct.

She joins the Podcast to talk about what leadership means to her, why it is important that World Council now has two women at the top of the organization and how WOCCU can lead the global credit union movement in some key strategic areas.

Oscar Guzman, Chief of Party for World Council of Credit Unions’ Economic Inclusion Project (EIP), discusses how the USAID-funded activity in Peru and Ecuador connects Venezuelan migrants and low-income local residents to financial services, employment and entrepreneurship opportunities, and also works on the prevention of gender-based violence. At the two-year mark, the Economic Inclusion Project has had a tremendous impact in South America and provides some lessons on how to assist migrant and refugee populations around the world.

New World Council of Credit Unions' (WOCCU) President and CEO Elissa McCarter LaBorde is the featured guest. Elissa took over her new leadership role in August 2021, bringing more than 20 years of experience leading organizations in delivering financial services to underserved communities across the globe.

For the previous 12 years, Ms. LaBorde served as Chief Executive Officer of Vitas Group, a for-profit holding company she established under Global Communities, an international development and humanitarian aid organization that operates in 27 countries. Ms. LaBorde also served for 16 years as Global Communities’ Vice President of Development Finance, overseeing the non-profit organization’s strategy, investment and thought leadership in financial inclusion.

Greg Neumann talks to her about why she felt the time was right for a new challenge and why she thinks credit unions offer a huge opportunity to financial inclusion around the world through further digitization.

If you work in compliance at a credit union or you advocate on behalf of credit unions at any level of government, you know that standard setters and regulators never sleep.

And this summer seems to be even busier than usual for the professionals with World Council of Credit Unions’ International Advocacy team, as the G20 discusses the importance of financial inclusion and other international standard setters focus on the digital operational resilience of financial institutions.

So, what does all that mean for credit unions? Andrew Price, World Council Senior Vice President of International Advocacy, joins Host Greg Neumann this month to talk about why those issues are of particular concern for WOCCU—and how he’s working with our members to make sure the credit unions we represent are treated proportionally on those issues. We also discuss:

You can learn more about the work of Andrew Price and our International Advocacy team does by reading their Advocate blog at advocate.woccu.org and The Telegraph monthly newsletter at www.woccu.org/telegraph.