22 BARBADOS PUBLIC WORKERS’ CO-OPERATIVE CREDIT UNION LIMITED Credit Union Performance The period under review was a challenging one for the board and management. This was not only a result of the weighty worldwide economic fluctuations, ongoing economic instability, or the lowered growth rates signalled by both the IMF and the World Bank, but more so because of increased threats that are becoming more routine in the financial services sector such as cybersecurity attacks and incidents, heightened and more aggressive competition from banks and other non-bank lenders, rising regulatory burdens, and the continued and increased need for more expeditious digital transformation and enhanced talent management across the credit union. In a year that saw our usual level of surplus materially impacted by several abnormal and one-off matters, we acknowledge that we were adversely affected by: • Fraud losses arising out of a sophisticated BIN attack that resulted in the compromise of some of our members’ Mastercard debit card Overview Throughout the past fiscal year our Credit Union, in line with its pivotal position within the Barbadian community, has continued to seek to bring about positive outcomes for both our members and dedicated employees. The core cooperative principles have remained the driving force behind all our endeavours, and have continued to shape our engagement with the community as will be showcased throughout this report. This period has been exceptionally dynamic with lots of unexpected and at time negatively impacting twists and turns, against which we take pride in the milestones we have reached. Building communities is one of our key principles. To do so, we strive to offer products with competitive or market leading rates that are delivered with the friendly expertise of staff who are happy to serve our approximately 120,000 members across the island. We extend our sincere gratitude for your ongoing support and reiterate our commitment to making a positive impact in our community as we look forward to the year ahead. “ We are proud of what we have accomplished from an operational, member service and community perspective Board of Directors’ Report • Increased expenses arising out of corporate redesign staff related costs • Lower than budgeted interest income from consumer loans • Loss of interest income driven by write-offs due to the fact that some of our core borrowing members had reduced jobs opportunities making it impossible at times to fulfil their financial obligations to the organisation. A review of the financial results of the year under review would show a lower than desired surplus, but normalising the organisation’s performance to account for the abnormal fraud and redesign costs that occurred during the year would show a recorded surplus from normal operations being 10% better than prior year. This is shown in the below table.
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