As the new Minister of Finance, Carole James, has several issues on her plate. The two simplest are getting attention, because they are listed in the direction given to her by the new premier. One is taxation, reversing the scheduled increase that faces large credit unions that no longer qualify as ‘small business’. And second, […]
Communications professionals know that you can sell something if you give it a good ‘modern’ or ‘contemporary’ brand identity. This is the spin we hear all the time regarding a ‘cashless society’. Apparently convenience means more than anything else. But there is a darker side to this proposition; the expanded role of large intermediaries (e.g. […]
The last few decades have seen a huge change in the ‘structure’ of our economy. Rana Foroohar provides an accessible overview of the USA economy in her book Makers and Takers. She notes that over the last thirty years finance, and financial engineering, have come to dominate the world of business and traditional ‘maker’ industries, […]
Watch out if you use the word ‘bank’. On June 30th the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (“OSFI”) issued an advisory that re-asserted that the use of the words bank, banker, and banking are restricted under The Bank Act. OSFI expressed displeasure at the expanded use of the words by non-banks and they […]
The leadership at Coast Capital Savings is pursuing the ‘journey’ to become a federal credit union. A few members of Coast Capital have expressed some alarm at the manner in which the consent of members was pushed through to authorize the project. I have also written a couple of posts (Bank?, and Sales Culture). […]
This is a new frontier for credit unions. Regulatory Arbitrage is a big part of decision-making in large corporate entities as they choose where and how to do business. The issue is the potential impact of requirements in certain legal jurisdictions; differing requirements drive corporate structures, governance practices, business strategies, investments, business location, staffing, and, […]
Recently Central 1 has said that changes are planned for credit union director training. The proposed threefold increase in the size of the program invites real scrutiny and critical discussion. It would be one more big burden on small credit unions! In BC currently, directors are required to complete a program that is determined by […]
This week FICOM hosted a conference for BC credit union directors, the sixth such annual event they have mounted. Presentations from commission staff were augmented by a speaker on ‘Building Effective Boards’, Bev Behan. The reporting out on FICOM and CUDIC activity was to be commended and some good questions were raised. And while the […]
Recently, economist Michael Hudson visited Vancouver to speak on the issue of housing and the ‘Junk Economics‘ (the title of his most recent book) behind our apparent good times. The substance of his observations is presented in a readable article in this week’s Common Ground. Hudson spoke at an event sponsored by the Centre For […]
At the recent Central 1 conference and AGM I listened to economists provide updates and, somehow, the growth in inequality got little attention. Although Helmut Pastrick, the Chief Economist at C1, did provide a recent analysis showing the job growth in BC (and Ontario), but he did not observe that it has been where wages […]