Regulation of Credit Union

[Brendan Burgess]

There should be proper governance and the Central Bank would be concerned if there is not.

However, is there any aspect of the board's behaviour that you object to? Is the CU in financial trouble? Are they planning a merger with which you disagree? Are they refusing to merge, and you think that they should? Are they giving big loans to board members?

These operational concerns would be and should be of greater concern to you and to the Central Bank.

I would prefer a well-run credit union which is short a board member or two than a credit union in crisis which ticks all the Central Bank's regulatory boxes.

 

[24601]

I feel like you are focusing too much on procedural matters like the number of directors and the identification process for online meetings etc. They are permitted to have online and hybrid AGMs now, and despite what you are saying I have never been at a meeting where each attendee, online or in-person, is identified. They might say something like: "we have 60 in attendance this evening, 40 here in person and 20 online". You keep talking about the online vote supporting the board's positions - what positions exactly? What kind of votes are they having? Any CU AGM I have been at have had very boring, technical votes, elections and votes for the dividend, but little outside of this. Are the online vote results diverging from the in-person ones? Again, how do you know this?

Everything you are saying seems very vague. Having said that, the fact that they have had 2 special general meetings to elect two new board oversight committees would tend to support your suspicion that there are serious governance issues. The cost involved in an SGM is fairly big so to have one of them for that reason is strange enough but to have 2 is bizarre.

 

[Annieindublin]

I assume that someone records attendance at the meetings and this is noted in the minutes. Online and in person, a sign in sheet for in person and a unique log in link for online. Online the secretary will be able to identify who is speaking.

So although you might not be able to see it the secretary can. Who proposes a motion and who seconds it will be recorded. And you can ask for the minutes of the meetings.

I agree two SGMs sounds unusual but they did hold them and presumably that was to address issues such as resignations of directors

Have you removed your money if you have concerns? The guarantee only covers €100k so if you are really worried you might consider moving any above that.

 

[24601]

Have you removed your money if you have concerns? The guarantee only covers €100k so if you are really worried you might consider moving any above that.

Credit unions have a legal maximum of €100k anyway so this shouldn't be an issue.

I agree two SGMs sounds unusual but they did hold them and presumably that was to address issues such as resignations of directors

The OP mentioned that the BOC has 5 members, so this looks like 2 sets of 5 people decided twice within a short period that board governance was so bad that it warranted them resigning en masse. It would be very strange if the reasons for the committees resigning were not discussed at the SGMs.