About An Post Employees' Credit Union
The mission of the credit union is to promote the financial well being of its members. To achieve this purpose, the credit union is committed to providing a range of useful financial services based on principles of fairness and mutual self-help.
The credit union is run with an emphasis on sound governance, management and member communications processes to ensure its sustainability for the next generation. The Board of Directors, Board Oversight Committee, volunteers and staff hereby affirm that the efforts and energy of the credit union will be consistently and professionally dedicated to the accomplishment of these goals.
The credit union story
The modern credit union movement traces its origins to Germany and to Friedrich Willhelm Raiffeisen, the Mayor of a small town in southern Germany, who formed societies in 1849 which later evolved into credit unions. The purposes of these credit unions was to enable people to help themselves in relieving debt and poverty.
A credit union is a democratic, financial co-operative owned and controlled by its own members. There are several different types of co-operatives with credit unions being classed as consumer co-operatives since they are owned by the very people who consume their services. Each credit union is run to benefit its members, all of whom have something in common - a common bond.
The credit union movement was introduced into Ireland in 1958 by Nora Herilhy with the support of a number of other dedicated pioneers.
Since then, the credit union philosophy of mutual self-help has proved very popular, and there are now over 450 credit unions affiliated to the Irish league of Credit Unions throughout the island of Ireland.
In Ireland over three million members have recognized the value of credit unions, and have savings in excess of €16bn with their credit unions. There are thousands employed in the sector and many more thousands are volunteers involved in the movement.
An Post Employees' Credit Union was established in 1968 by the late Jimmy O'Connor as the CSO (Central Sorting Office) Credit Union in the old Sherriff Street sorting office. It proved very successful and, with the advent of payroll deduction, the common bond was extended to the rest of Dublin and eventually nationwide. Today it has assets in excess of €50m and a very active membership with operations based in a modern office on Ringsend Road in Dublin.
