engleski

Rethinking the role of credit unions in the European social economy

Global financial crisis of 2007/2008 has brought a lot of rethinking, not just in terms of financial sector regulation, but also of the very role of financial institutions in supporting the society's needs. Motivated by opinion of some finance academics and professionals, that banking should be small-scale and boring (e.g. see Gilmann, 2017), we reexamine the role of small, bank-like financial institutions, by focusing on credit unions. Although popular in some parts of the world, credit unions have in certain countries been ignored in financial sector development. The aim of this review paper is to rethink the role of credit unions in social economy and asses their future prospects. In our theoretical research focused on credit unions in the European Union countries, we systematically approach their organizational and institutional features, analyse significance in serving society's needs and identify major obstacles to their development. We conclude that credit unions have conditional potential in contributing to the European social economy.

credit unions ; cooperatives ; Europe

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