A Time for New Beginnings
The next few years at Vancity will be a critical period in our credit union’s history. The 2008 global financial crisis was an immense challenge for all financial institutions. Coping with its fallout – and working to strengthen and protect the organization’s key operations – was a central task for Vancity’s board and management during 2009. Responses to the challenges of the past year and a half often were not easy, nor comfortable.
Now, with a recovering economy and more stable financial sector, Vancity must re-establish its course as a leadership organization. The need for an innovative, inclusive, member-driven financial institution in our community is more critical than ever. Our platform has been carefully developed to continue to champion this vision while recognizing the need to rebuild in areas where members, employees, and the communities we serve have felt the burden of the challenges we have come through.
Measures taken over the past 18 months helped secure the efficiency and profitability of Vancity’s core operations. Now, recognizing that times continue to be hard economically for many of our members, we believe the internal gains should be shared. We will hold the line on banking fees, while ensuring the continued sound financial management and adequate revenues of the credit union overall. This will help protect Vancity’s accessibility to all members, particularly those who may be new to Canada or who have significantly suffered during the recession.
During tough economic times we need to make banking more affordable, while ensuring sound financial management.
Vancity was founded with the vision of a financial institution that invests in and serves its local communities. Over the past 25 years, the Action Team has worked to develop that vision into a leading-edge organization with a rich set of tools to empower community groups that meet needs, fuel progress, and enrich our collective quality of life. These tools range from grants to social finance, from non-profit banking packages to sharing our technical expertise. Through these efforts, Vancity has become a recognized role model as a financial institution that works with diverse local partners to cultivate a sustainable, resilient community.
Now, with government funding cuts and charitable foundations hard hit by the financial crisis, it is critical that our credit union continue its innovation and leadership in community investment. We are committed to furthering the legacy of previous Action Team members through ensuring flexible, creative responses to community needs, using the full range of tools at our disposal. We reject the idea of setting quotas for grant-making in any one sector, preferring to seek innovative, integrated solutions that will meet as many needs as possible while supporting all facets of the community.
Vancity must remain a leader in supporting the arts, environment, and community groups; by building our members’ wealth, we’re also enriching community.
Vancity has a history of strong employee relations and good employee satisfaction. Recently, however, employees have felt the impact of decisions aimed at positioning the credit union on solid fundamentals within a shaken financial sector. Now it is time to invest in people, ensuring that our employees are able to do their best work with the right tools and supports. We recognize that employees are our most critical asset in our mission to build our communities and provide excellent service to our members. A healthy community starts within our walls; it is time for renewed commitment here.
Restructuring and difficult financial markets have taken a major toll on Vancity members and staff. We must modernize the tools and support that staff need to do their jobs well, and with satisfaction. Happy employees mean better service.
We have become aware of too many stories where members have experienced challenges in accessing lending services from Vancity. There may be many causes – unclear procedures, inadequate flexibility, insufficient support for lending staff. Lending is one of our key tools in building both our business and our community’s well-being, by allowing members to access to our shared capital to fuel their personal or business goals. Indeed, it was the basis for the founding of this credit union. We want to ensure Vancity continues to be a first-stop lender of choice through improved processes and service, for all of our diverse membership.
We must be a competitive lender that makes it easier, not harder to finance our members’ dreams. Too often, members who should get mortgages go to banks. Women entrepreneurs and new Canadians deserve better service. We all do.
