35 credit unions from across Ireland said they are interested in participating in the establishment of a Central Liquidity Management Mechanism (CLMM) for the sector.
A CLMM, if fully enabled, will act as a centralised treasury function working for all member credit unions.
The move to create a CLMM has been led by five Credit Unions, supported by the two key representative bodies for the sector - the ILCU and CUDA.
The five credit unions are Member First Credit Union, Health Services Staff Credit Union, Comhar Linn INTO Credit Union, First Tech Credit Union and St Raphael's Garda Credit Union.
The project is open to all credit unions across the country.
Representatives of the credit unions leading the project met this week with the Minister for Financial Services, Credit Unions and Insurance at the Department of Finance, Robert Troy.
The establishment of a Central Liquidity Management Mechanism for the sector is regarded as part of the process in the establishment of what is known as a Corporate Credit Union - a credit union for credit unions.
As well as setting up new funding structures for use by individual credit unions, it will provide other, highly skilled services such as Asset and Liability Management for participating credit unions.
The new initiative will provide tools to ultimately enable credit unions to play a much greater role in mortgage and SME lending in particular.
Earlier this year the Central Bank confirmed that credit unions will be allowed increase the level of mortgage lending they do as a percentage of their total assets (up to 30%).
The move will see credit unions playing a more significant role in providing housing in local communities across Ireland.
But to reach that volume, credit unions will require more sophisticated treasury management resources, hence the interest in a centralised function.
