We were particularly pleased that at our January conference we were able to host guests from two Romanian credit unions (casas de ajutor reciproc, or CAR). The conference was a ‘multiplier event’ for an Erasmus+ project called Fincare, in which credit unions and co-operators from Britain, Italy and Romania are collaborating on financial education and governance materials. The lead partner is UNCAR, the largest trade association for credit unions in Romania.

Our Romanian conference guests were Tatiana Dima, CEO of CAR Metropolitan, primarily serving employees in passenger transport in Bucharest, and Vlad-Andrei Dabija, Finance Officer at CAR SilvaPam, which serves the community of Curtea de Arges. Tatiana and Vlad were grateful for the financial support of CFCFE member Manchester Credit Union and the consortium of Credit Unions for Greater Manchester to enable their trip, which included a day visiting Manchester and Co-op credit unions.

So it was a double good news that Anca Voinea from Co-op News also attended the conference. Apart from Anca’s long-standing interested in credit unions, it was great to have a native Romanian speaker to introduce to Tatiana and Vlad. Anca’s report on the conference was published in the News’ February edition and can be read here.