Launch of Infiniti Co-operative Credit Union Jamaica Limited
Keynote Address
By
Dr the Most Honourable Andrew Holness ON, PC, MP
Prime Minister of Jamaica
At the
Launch of Infiniti Co-operative Credit Union Jamaica Limited
On
February 25, 2025
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Executives and members of the Jamaica Cooperative Credit Union,
Other special guests,
Representatives of the private sector and public sector bodies,
Representatives of the media,
Ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon.
What a joy and privilege it is to be here with you this afternoon as we celebrate a historic milestone, the official launch of Infiniti Co-operative Credit Union Jamaica Limited. This momentous occasion marks the coming together of two exceptional institutions, Educom Co-operative Credit Union and Gateway Co-operative Credit Union whose shared vision and dedication have given rise to something truly extraordinary. Infiniti represents more than just a name, it symbolizes limitless potential, boundless opportunities, and a future where every member has the tools to thrive. I might steal that name, Infiniti.
Today, we celebrate not just a merger, but the beginning of a new journey, one built on strength, innovation, and an unwavering commitment to financial inclusion and empowerment. As we celebrate this occasion, let us take a moment to honour the rich history of the credit union movement in Jamaica, a history rooted in resilience, community, and above all, service. The story begins in the 1940s, a time when financial inclusion was not the norm for many Jamaicans. It was Father John Peter Sullivan, a visionary Jesuit missionary who alongside the Catholic Young Men’s Solidarity (CYMS), planted the seeds of change.
In 1941 they established Jamaica’s first credit union with a humble US $1.87 in shares. Their guiding principle, not for profit, not for charity, but for service; profound. And I believe that still remains the fundamental guiding principle of the credit union movement in Jamaica. From those humble beginnings, the credit union movement has grown into a cornerstone of Jamaica’s financial landscape evolving from 96 dispersed credit unions in the 1970s to the strong consolidated 23 institutions we have today. The movement has weathered storms, embraced change, and remained steadfast in its mission to serve.
Today, credit unions collectively serve over 1 million members with total assets exceeding 194 billion Jamaican dollars. As membership-based financial institutions, they offer a nurturing alternative to the formality of traditional banking establishments. Financial inclusion is not just a buzzword, it is a fundamental pillar of economic empowerment, a bridge that connects individuals and communities to opportunities for growth, stability and social equity.
In today’s world, where access to financial services can determine whether a family thrives or struggles, financial inclusion is more than a policy goal, it is a necessity. Credit unions have emerged as a transformative force in this mission providing affordable and accessible financial solutions to those often overlooked by traditional banking institutions by offering fair credit, saving opportunities, and financial education. Credit unions empower individuals to build wealth, strengthen local economies, and create a more resilient and inclusive financial system.
In Jamaica, where approximately 23% of the population remains unbanked or underbanked, credit unions play a critical role in bridging this gap. They provide access to affordable credit for farmers and entrepreneurs. They provide savings and investment opportunities for individuals and families. And they provide financial literacy programmes that empower members to make informed decisions. By offering these services, credit unions help to break the cycle of poverty, create opportunities for upward mobility, and foster economic resilience in communities across the island.
And I can say that I have been a beneficiary of the credit union system. My mother was a civil servant, and she worked in the Ministry of Labour for many years, and as a single mother she wanted to extend our NHT house in Spanish Town, in a housing scheme, and I do recall her being a very ardent credit union member in terms of being very disciplined in saving in the credit union, and she would do this very often. And in fact, she got a loan from the credit union to be able to expand the house that we lived in.
We’re always a very frugal family, so we didn’t like to borrow and the financial institution which gave her the greatest comfort to owe was the credit union. She’s still a member today, and I believe she still does business with the credit union. Several times she would have gone to the credit union, including for my education to borrow so I have a very soft spot in my heart for the credit union so it was never a challenge for me to accept the invitation. No matter how busy my schedule was today, I had to be here with you.
So before I speak further to the role of Infiniti, let us take a moment to celebrate the remarkable achievements that Jamaica has made in the last nine years. And indeed, I have also noticed that the credit union community has also made some very impressive moves in the last nine years. These accomplishments provide a strong foundation for institutions like Infiniti to thrive and contribute to national development. We notice that the credit union movement, even though we’re seeing greater conglomeration but it is a deeper foundation, stronger institution, and greater capacity to serve its members with new and evolving products and to leverage technology.
And of course, as the economy does well, so too will the credit unions. For example, with historic low unemployment, our unemployment rate is now at 3.5%, empowering Jamaicans with income and I take this opportunity to say to all Jamaicans who are now employed, regardless of how you may feel dissatisfied about your income, you are one step further to prosperity by having an income. The challenge is what do you do with income? You’re always going to be faced with the priority to consume, to use all of your income. What I learned from my mother, a civil servant with a small income, was that a major priority was savings. You’re not going to build wealth without savings. Saving is a sacrifice; you’re sacrificing current consumption. This statement is also true, you will not build wealth without sacrifice.
I appeal to all the young people getting jobs, all the people who are currently working, and you have all the bills piling up, and all the demands, make your savings compulsory no matter what it is. And I saw my mother doing that, and that has always been my principle as well, and that’s how we have run the economy of the country with this kind of fiscal prudence that you have to put aside something, you create fiscal buffers, anything can happen. But if nothing happens, you have this fiscal buffer that you can also use positively for capital development. What is good for the economy is also good for the household economy and the credit unions play a critical part in that because credit unions form an accessible entity in which you can put your savings and then have that savings leveraged in terms of your shares in the credit union. The credit unions are critical to wealth creation in Jamaica. So, with more people employed, and if we get them to save their income, the credit unions will do well, but households will do well as well.
Our debt to GDP ratio, now we’re on track to reduce our debt-to-GDP ratio to below 70%. In fact, we will be about 68%, in the next fiscal year in a few week’s time and that will be the lowest since the 1970s. Inflation is under control. Our inflation rate dropped from 10.3% in November 2022, that was in the heights of the post-COVID supply chain disruptions and now we are at 4.3% as of November 2024. Your government recognizes that the cost of living is still high and we will continue to focus on lowering the cost of living and so the decline in inflation and the stabilization of inflation shows that we are moving in the right direction.
Jamaica’s credit ratings are at their highest levels since our debt has been externally rated which clearly signals our enhanced credibility and fiscal strength on the global stage. In fact, last week, Fitch reaffirmed our credit rating at BB- with a positive outlook. This signals that Jamaica is on a stronger economic path with lower perceived risk for investors and this is a very good thing.
After 57 consecutive years of deficits, we have achieved a balance of payment surplus for the past two fiscal years, and this is a monumental achievement. Our net international reserves closed 2024 at a record high of US$ 5.6 billion. Before Hurricane Beryl, we recorded 12 consecutive quarters of economic growth post-COVID. And after the brief interruption caused by the effects of Hurricane Beryl and Tropical Storm Raphael, the Planning Institute of Jamaica has projected that we will return to growth in the January-March 2025 quarter. Business confidence has risen increasing to 7.3% over the previous year, and is at its highest level since the second quarter of 2019.
Murders declined by 19% in 2024 following an 8% decline in 2023. This positive trajectory continued into 2025 with a 27% decline in murders between January 1 and February 22, 2025 compared with the same period in 2024. In fact, murders in January 2025 were 51% lower than in January 2022. Jamaica is safer today than at any time in the past two decades with major crimes recorded in 2024 being the lowest since the data started to be tracked in 2001. As murders continue to trend downwards, and we will make sure of that, that is one of the biggest impediments to our economic growth and we will remove that impediment; crime and violence.
So, ladies and gentlemen, these numbers represent progress. In any other country, these numbers would be interpreted as fantastic. Everyone would see that the country is heading in the right direction. In Jamaica, there is a lag because we have been coming from very difficult times and so there is a belief factor. Will this last? Will this be sustainable? Is this just something that is temporary? And then there is the issue of how these things trickle down to everyone in the society. How does it affect daily life? We hear of a large reserve, and then people will be saying, how does this large $5.6 billion make my life better? We hear the debt being reduced to now below 70%, coming from 130% and someone in the market may say, how does that make my life better?
I think the reverse question is an equally valid question. What if we did not have a $5.6 billion reserve? What would happen to your foreign exchange rate and the things you import to consume? What if the debt were still at 130% of GDP? How much interest and debt servicing would we have to be paying? So, there needs to be a conversation with the population, the electorate, to understand the importance of having the economy going in the right direction because if the economy is going in the wrong direction, no matter what promises are made, no matter the desires that you have, they cannot be fulfilled.
Jamaica is in a different place today because we have an economy that can fulfill the needs and wants of the Jamaican people. Jamaica has never had an economy in the last 50 years that can deliver like what this economy can deliver. Now, not everything will be delivered in the snap of a finger. Not every road will be fixed tomorrow. Not every district will get water tomorrow. The crime problem will not be solved next week but once you have an economy where you are reducing, and many of you here are financial experts, you will understand. You are reducing the level of debt servicing that claims on your revenues.
In 2014/ 2015 the debt servicing as a percentage of revenues for the economy was about 33%. Today, it is 18% so you see, with that reduction, and less claim on the revenues, the government has more resources to address the things you need but if the debt is high, you don’t have the resources to address the things you need. So, the person in the market saying, how does this benefit me? It benefits you because the government for the first time in many years is able to order a hundred new buses for the transportation system. Not once, but twice because we have a hundred more buses coming in another four months.
If you are in the market and you have to travel from Coronation Market to go to Morant Bay, there is now a JUTC bus service that does that. That is how the good economy provides benefits for you and it is a benefit, not just in comfort and reliability, but that is a subsidized transportation rate. If you have to travel from parts of St Mary to come into Kingston, we have now extended the route up into parts of St Mary and that is the beauty of an economy that works.
If you are working and you are registered and you are paying taxes, you can get the benefit of the reverse tax credit. It never happened before in our country. That is the benefit of having an economy that is working and I use this example. Guyana recently decided that they would give back, I don’t remember what it was, maybe $70,000 or $150,000, somewhere in that region, to each Guyanese citizen 18 years and over. They gave back some because that is coming from the oil revenue. And Jamaica was able to give back the tax revenues in the reverse tax credit. Which natural resource did we discover to do that? Where did that come from? We didn’t discover oil. That was good management.
That’s the dividends that come from frugal management of the fiscal affairs of the country and if we keep managing our economy, if we keep ensuring that that engine that drives the country is working, then we can now start to program what we are going to do. We know we need buses, we can program the buses over five years. We know we need to get water supply to the communities all across Jamaica, we can program them. We know that we need to increase the capacity of the police force, we can program it because now we have the economy to deliver it and that’s what we’ve been doing.
Note, it took us 10 years to move the establishment of the police force. The police force had somewhere in the region of about 10,000 officers which is fairly very low relative to our crime situation and the demands on the country. Now we have over 14,000 police officers. How is that supported? It is supported because we have greater fiscal space to carry the additional salaries and not just additional salaries, but to increase the salaries, increase the equipping of the police force so that they are able to deliver for us today the reductions we are seeing in murders and major crimes. This is an incontrovertible fact. Recall, when have we ever been struck by a natural disaster and we don’t have to borrow? Just think about it. We were struck by Hurricane Beryl and because of good fiscal management we had fiscal buffers. We actually set aside funds. We were able to put $5 billion into the economy right away to provide support for farmers and 14,000 Jamaicans got rebuilding grants. When have we been able to do that?
The good economy is absolutely important and the credit union system is critical for that good economy. I was just asking some questions about the profile of the credit union member, and I wanted to know what are credit union members borrowing most for and I’m told that they’re borrowing most for cars. Do you know that in the last ten years, we have literally doubled the number of cars on the roads in Jamaica? A good economy does that so no wonder the credit unions are growing.
But I would use this platform to also say that I would wish that we would use it for other things, for other forms of consumer investment. Motor vehicles are good but the credit union is not set up to lend money to businesses, but there are many small sole traders. The man is the business, or the woman is the business. Borrow for business. Borrow to invest in business. I know many people borrow for education. Continue to borrow for education. And I would say borrow for upskilling because believe me when I tell you, on the horizon is a major change in how work is done, artificial intelligence and the cyber-physical.
My encouragement always when I speak to young people especially young professionals, is to always seek to upskill. Get further away from skills that can be replaced by technology and get into areas where you have to direct technology or create technology or in areas where it is difficult for technology to replicate it. Not to fear technology, but to embrace it for upskilling so borrow for that, for your personal development.
I think I’ve taken up a long time at this, at this platform, but you have been a great audience. And let me say that with a combined asset base of over $31 billion, that is Infiniti, which is large out of the 194, you would be the second largest asset base in the credit union fraternity. And with over 176,000 members with a network of 13 branches, Infiniti is indeed a major player in Jamaica’s credit union landscape. Your philosophy is service, meaning service excellence, effective communication and teamwork, results and reward orientation, volunteerism, integrity and trust, continuous learning and improvement, and efficiency and operational excellence. All of that is your embodiment of service and this principle, which you have articulated and spread throughout your organization, I’m certain will ensure that your employees deliver exceptional service to your customers.
Your tagline, where possibilities are endless captures the mission so I like the name and the tagline, Infiniti, where possibilities are endless; I love it. And through competitive loans, innovative saving products, and digital services like mobile banking, you are and will be empowering your members at every stage of their lives. So, as we look to the future, the role of credit unions like Infiniti has never been more important. The challenges of our time, economic inequality, digital transformation, and climate change require bold, innovative, and collaborative solutions, and Infiniti Cooperative Credit Union is uniquely positioned to deliver those.
So, in closing, let us always remember that the credit union movement was built on a simple but powerful idea that by coming together, we can achieve more than we could ever alone. Infiniti Cooperative Credit Union embodies the spirit of unity, service, and possibilities. So as you embark on this new journey, I urge you to stay true to your mission to empower your members, to serve your communities and to create a future where financial inclusion is not just a goal, but a reality for all. Congratulations to the board, management, staff, and members of the Infiniti Cooperative Credit Union. May your possibilities truly be endless and may your impact be felt for generations to come.
Thank you, and may God bless you.