RDIS learns from YAK experience in community development. Among others, Ate Keleng Foundation / Development Participation of Karo Batak Protestant Church (YAK/PARPEM GBKP, Yayasan Ate Keleng / Partisipasi Pembangunan Gereja Batak Karo Protestan) has a Microfinance Service Division that handles 186 Credit Union it assists. It also has a Rural Bank in which it owns 60% of total shares.
The Credit Union is managed in the office of YAK by a group of five staff to ensure training, independence and sustainability. In the rural community, church members meet once a month to put together their savings (share capital, compulsory saving, voluntarily saving), disburse loans and collect payments. At a conclusion of the session, accounting books and forms are updated, member booklets updated, report compiled and sent to the office at YAK together with a bank payment of the savings to Perkeleng. This is a secondary Credit Union (union or umbrella of all credit unions) managing all 186 primary Credit Unions with 50,000 members. It officially started on the 27th July 2009 with 29 Credit Unions, but was registered under Indonesian law in 2020. It is a member of KSP (a regional union of cooperatives), and Inkopidt which is Indonesian union of Saving and Credits Cooperatives. It has total assets of 74 billion rupiahs (1 IDR = 0.08 RWF at the time of visit), with 58 billion members savings and 48 billion in loans. It has a Board renewable every three years, and a staff made of 7 employees. Credit Unions are given loans for their members at an annual interest varying from 6% to 12% per year where the highest loan provided is 1 million rupiah, and loans reimbursement goes from 1 to 150 months. Loans are mainly for agriculture, microbusiness, wellbeing (house, land, vehicle), and investment.
YAK has not only started a Credit Union, but also a Rural Bank in which it owns 60% of total shares. The remaining is owned by Alfa Omega (A Church Disability Organisation) which has a share of 24%, the staff of both YAK and GBKP Church which has 15% of total shares, and the rest shared among some individuals. The rural bank was founded in 1992 but started its operations in 1993 has 4,100 members/shareholders and 7,100 borrowers. It currently has five branches and 232 permanent employees with an average salary of 2.3 million rupiahs. Its starting story was driven by a number of Karo people who didn’t have access to financial services, or hindered by a high interest rate on loans provided by debt collectors in the time which could even go to 10% a month. From the bank sources, it is the sole bank formed by a church (or church organization) in the region, and the best performing growing development bank in North Sumatra, with the first in assets.
Similarly, RDIS has promoted saving and credit groups in its operation areas. Recently, it has encouraged a start of a Saving and Credit Cooperative called Five Talents Ubumwe (5T Ubumwe) which will grow to a financial institution. It aims not only helping in supporting members of existing informal saving and credit association schemes started by either RDIS organization or its founding dioceses in the respective operation areas, but also in resolving the issues of dishonesty where some members don’t pay back when they are given loan, and hence judiciary process is not applicable given those saving groups are not legally known. Founding members of 5T Ubumwe proudly expressed their proudness and commitment to establish the saving and credit cooperative and mobilizing and sensitizing other members of the communities of existing church-based saving and credit groups to join the cooperative. The cooperative got a provisional registration by Rwanda Cooperative Agency on the 10th June 2024.
It is possible for the Church and Church institutions to promote and make functional the firm circuit of financial services for the benefit of initiator shareholders as it is for YAK in GBKP which have played a crucial role in the establishment of the Credit Union, Perkeleng and the Rural Bank. The Church and Church Institutions play a key role in achieving Sustainable Development Goals such as decent work and economic growth (8), No Poverty (1) and some others. Out of financial institutions and services, more than 350 jobs were created by YAK: the Rural Bank employs 233 staff, the Perkeleng employs 7 permanent employees whilst YAK itself employs 43. Furthermore, those whose loans are given by the Rural Bank and Credit Union run their businesses in different sectors of activity. This creates jobs.