ABSTRACT
Cooperative banks have long fulfilled their role as member-based enterprises satisfying their members’ demand for credit. Funding is based on equity capital paid up by members who purchase shares and on savings from both members and other customers. An important innovation of cooperative banks was to provide access to credit for those excluded from the established banking system, and this new approach has provided access to credit at reasonable rates. From their outset, cooperative banks offered low interest credit to farmers and artisans and later, during the second half of the twentieth century, consumer credit for employees. Strongly anchored in the areas in which they operate, these banks are committed and responsible actors who channel savings into investment in the local economy.
