Coopbank has joined International Cooperative Alliance
The Cooperative Bank of Oromia has joined the International Cooperative Alliance (ICA), an independent non-governmental organization representing co-operatives in the globe. The Alliance was founded in 1895, and its members are national and international co-operative organizations in all sectors of activity, including agriculture, banking, credit and saving, industry, insurance, fishing, social housing, health, public services, consumer services, and tourism. The main objective of the ICA is to promote and strengthen co-operatives all over the world. Furthermore, the alliance endeavors to encourage and defend the values and principles of the co-operative movement, stimulates mutually beneficial relations between its member
organizations and favors the economy and social progress of people.
We, Cooperative Bank of Oromia, are a bank established by the co-operative movement to play our share in delivering financial services to the unbanked and underbanked communities as well as to sustain the co-operative institutions. With about 67 percent of our shareholdings being held by co-operative societies, we have a unique operating model and value propositions for co-operatives. We are also one of the largest banks in the Ethiopian banking industry, with huge retail branch networks in rural areas. With these premises, the Bank placed a membership request to the alliance by fulfilling all the necessary evidence and conditions. Located in Brussels — Belgium, the Membership Committee of the ICA Board afterward agreed to admit our Bank as a member.
Becoming a member of the alliance will benefit the bank for global networking, for learning and adopting the latest best practices globally in cooperative movement, and for global representation and decision-making which enables us to take
part in the global decision-making process regarding the strategy of the international cooperative movement. Additionally,
the bank has also joined International Cooperative Banking Association (ICBA), an association representing cooperative financial institutions and cooperative banks, affiliated, to the ICA.