Panel Discusses Findings of WOCCU Study on Financial Inclusion For Migrants And Refugees
CrowdStrike incident also a hot topic of discussion Tuesday at WCUC 2024
World Council of Credit Unions on Tuesday led a panel discussion on the findings from its new report, Insights from Credit Unions on Financial Inclusion for Migrants and Refugees, at the 2024 World Credit Union Conference.
Published in June, the report looks at the role credit unions play in supporting migrants and refugees in four countries: Brazil, Ecuador, Poland and the United States.
In the case of Ecuador, USAID/WOCCU Economic Inclusion Project (EIP) Chief of Party Oscar Guzman talked about the great work Jardin Azuayo, a credit union with nearly 800,000 members, is doing to provide products and services to Venezuelan migrants and refugees.
“It’s not just about credit or savings. It’s about cards, remittances and financial education. It’s also about hybrid services, like providing channels that can bring those services closer to the population," said Guzman.
Metro Credit Union, based in Chelsea, Massachusetts, was one of two U.S. credit unions studied for providing programs geared to migrant and refugee populations.
Charlene Bauer, Senior Vice President of Outreach, Advocacy and Chief Development Officer for Metro Credit Union, said many of their 18 branches serve large migrant populations.
“14 of those 18 branch managers are immigrants, either first or second generation,” said Bauer. “We want our branches to be representative of the communities they serve.”
Metro Credit Union works with migrants by showing them how to use debit cards, how to sign into online banking, and provides a robust financial wellness program, as well as a range of other services.
Other credit unions studied for their work with migrant and refugee populations included Sicredi (Brazil), Patelco (USA) and Kasa Stefczyka (Poland).
You can read both the full report and the shorter executive summary online.
CrowdStrike incident prompts new urgency
There was no better way to exemplify the impact of the faulty CrowdStrike update that shut down Microsoft 365 than to have that outage prevent one of Tuesday's scheduled speakers from getting to Boston for a breakout session on cyberattacks and service disruptions.
With flight cancelations forcing David Glod, Vice President for IT Security at Mountain America Credit Union to miss the session, co-host Gerard Joyce, Chief Technology Officer for CalQRisk, focused on the recent real-world event that also caused service disruptions for a number of credit unions.
“So, you’re thinking, ‘how could we have avoided this issue with CrowdStrike’, because CrowdStrike had access to Microsoft at the lowest level, at the root level,” explained Joyce. “So, diversity in operating systems, if you’re looking for a strategy for combating this, have a different operating system. And have a laptop that you don’t switch on every day, so there’s at least one that is working when the bad fixes hit.”
Joyce said he hopes the CrowdStrike incident provides a sense of urgency to credit unions that haven’t made a plan to prevent service disruptions.
“I urge you to think about what teams you would need if you had a cyberattack. Think about alternates. Think, if John is the IT manager but is on holiday, you need to have an alternative,” said Joyce.
If a service disruption or cyberattack does happen, Joyce advised not turning off power to your servers.
“The regulator would be asking you, ‘how long has this been going on? And how did they get in?’ And if you pull the power on the server, you lose information,” said Joyce. “Cut connectivity (to the internet), not power.”
Still to come
The 2024 World Credit Union Conference continues Wednesday with the final general session, featuring a keynote address from Erica Dhawan.
Follow conference activities and see daily event photos on Facebook, X (Twitter), LinkedIn and Instagram with #WCUC2024.
Presented in collaboration with the America’s Credit Unions, the 2024 World Credit Union Conference runs through Wednesday, July 24.