Iowa CUs Visit Panama

MADISON, Wis. - Five delegates from the Iowa Credit Union League spent a week in Panama to support the educational and lobbying initiatives of Panama's credit union league (COFEP) to establish credit union regulation. The visit grew out of the leagues' international partnership through World Council of Credit Unions.

At the start of their partnership activities two years ago, World Council, COFEP and ICUL identified the lack of credit union-specific regulation as the main weakness. In the leagues' fourth face-to-face partnership exchange in two years, ICUL CEO Pat Jury, VP Murray Williams, VP Justin Hupfer, along with Mark Kilian, CEO of Community Lenders, and Pat Drennen, general manager of 1st Gateway Credit Union, sought to directly assist COFEP in pushing for specific credit union regulation.

During its weeklong stay, the ICUL group visited four credit unions and met with government officials and COFEP executives. The week's activities culminated in a day-long conference on credit union best practices at which over 100 CU were on hand.

Drennan said a hurdle they have had to overcome in the partnership is convincing their counterparts that lobbying is a good thing. "The issue of...lobbying is kind of foreign in Panama because the mindset is that if you're talking to a government official, you're bribing them," he explained.