Azerbaijan Credit Union Leaders Visit the U.S.
The chiefs of five leading Azerbaijan credit unions and the director of the Azerbaijan Credit Union Association (AKIA) participated in a two-week U.S. study tour designed to help them consider ways of developing the institutional capacity of credit unions back home. The study tour was jointly funded by USAID START Program and USAID’s Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) Support Through Financial Sector Development Project, implemented by ACDI-VOCA.
The tour was hosted and facilitated by UMassFive Credit Union that serves students, faculty and staff of the University of Massachusetts. A relationship fostered through USAID’s Community Connection Program between the Government of Azerbaijan and UMassFive laid the groundwork for the tour.
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Through USAID Azerbaijani credit union leaders developed relationships with Boston-based institutions that laid the groundwork for their recent study tour.
Photo Credit: ACDI-VOCA |
During this trip heads of credit unions visited several US credit unions, including Harvard, MIT and Valley Stone, as well as the Massachusetts Credit Union League office, and the National Credit Union Museum in Manchester, New Hampshire.
Participants were provided with the UMassFive’s mission, current strategic and operational plans and briefly visited its Employee Benefits Fair and UMassFive exhibition booth. Presentation materials on all products and services to be offered, activities of board of directors and internal procedures of the credit union were shared with the Azerbaijani participants. They were also given insights to advanced human resources management and development and received trainings on budgeting, identity theft prevention, branding development, market research, member service, and internal and external auditing. The delegation traveled to small branches and service centers at Harvard and MIT that bore similarity to existing branches of Azerbaijan credit unions.
“The study tour was very effective in terms of studying the principles and basics of the American credit unions. U.S. legislation might be a significant international best practice to apply in Azerbaijan, as U.S. credit unions are tax exempted and are able to take deposits,” noted participant and AKIA chairman Elchin Bagirov.
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