A renewed push in Puerto Rico to get involved in CDFIs.
Puerto Rico's cooperativas—the island-guaranteed credit unions—are being urged to seek assistance from a previously untapped source, the Community Development Financial Institution program.
The cooperativas are insured by the territory's Corporation for the Supervision and Insurance of Cooperatives (COSSEC). These institutions are in addition to the island's credit unions that are insured by the NCUA.
Recommended For You
"This is a region where cooperatives have been very strong," said Pablo DeFilippi, senior vice president of membership and network engagement at the National Federation of Community Development Credit Unions.
DeFilippi said that no cooperativa has ever applied for the Community Development Financial Institution program, which could provide them with technical and financial help.
However, the CDFI program considers the island to be an investment area, which pretty much guarantees that all island credit unions and cooperativas are eligible to be certified as CDFIs and could receive technical and financial assistance grants, DeFilippi said.
"We were talking to the cooperativas…and they realized they were eligible for the CDFI program," he said. "We gave them a crash course on how to apply."
The federation held an initial event in Puerto Rico in February to educate credit unions about the CDFI program and to discuss the systemic challenges they face. The federation worked on the program with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the CDFI Fund, the Association of Cooperative Executives of Puerto Rico and the University of New Hampshire.
One of the beauties of the CDFI program is that traditional banks can invest in community development credit unions as part of their efforts under the Community Reinvestment Act, he said.
The efforts are in the infant stage. Several cooperativas have applied for technical assistance grants; they do not have to be certified CDFI institutions to obtain those grants.
DeFilippi said other institutions are applying to be fully certified as CDFIs for the 2019 application cycle.
The federation will hold another meeting with credit unions and cooperativas in June. The federation hopes that the meeting will result in partnerships between mainland and island credit unions, as well as the cooperativas. The discussions also will focus on developing energy resources and the role that island financial institutions may plan in that effort.
COSSEC has said that there are 115 cooperativas on the island that hold $8.1 billion in shares and deposits for almost one million members. Banks, on the other hand, hold some $45 billion in deposits from customers on the island.
COSSEC has said that 15 days after Hurricane Maria, 90% of the cooperativas were open and one month after the hurricane, there were 17 communities where the only functioning financial institution was a cooperativa.
© 2025 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.
