The government has announced plans to consolidate the cooperative financial services sector. The move is seen as both timely and crucial, seeing that the credit cooperatives sector has assets totalling 116 billion ringgit. These cooperatives, prominent examples being Bank Rakyat and Co-op Bank Persatuan Malaysia, have some 3.4 million members in total.

In line with this, the  Domestic Trade, Cooperatives and Consumerism Ministry recently announced a major revamp of the Co-operative Societies Act, to better regulate credit cooperatives in the country.  This will compel smaller cooperatives to merge and form larger entities, to increase their lending capacity, market share and revenue. The ministry plans to table the new amendments by June this year. 

We explore what the amendments to the Act will mean for Malaysia’s Credit Co-ops, and Putrajaya’s goal to galvanize the industry. 

This is a report by Jason Lim.