SUCCESS maybe credited to "effective services."
This is the contention of Rey Anthony A. Cuenca, Education Committee coordinator of First Community Cooperative (Ficco), after noting the phenomenal increase in membership of the organization since it started 56 years ago.
As of August this year, Cuenca said Ficco members stood at 138,000.
"Since its birth 56 years ago, Ficco was able to post around 73,000 members as of the year 2004 but in February 2009, membership increased to 120,000 and made the highest leap to 138,000 as of this month in a span of only 18 months," Cuenca said.
He said the phenomenal increase in membership may be credited to the effective services that the cooperative is continuously rendering to the public since its inception.
"Yes, because the members are satisfied with the services that we give," Cuenca said.
He said there's no need for Ficco to advertise and entice more people to join since the "word of mouth" is the best promotion for a certain organization like cooperatives.
Cuenca said the existing members could attest to the credibility of Ficco, especially those who actually experienced the cooperative's high quality of services.
"When you talk about Ficco, in a snap, everybody knows it already," he said.
Among the services Ficco offers include different kinds of loans such as cellphone loans, petty cash, small enterprises assistance loan to small-time businessmen; home assistance loan for house renovation and construction; agricultural loans for farmers; rice loan; calamity loans during tragedies; commercial credit line loan; vendors and drivers assistance loan; jewelry loan for members who would want to give a gift in the form of jewelry; loan against deposit; loan against time deposit; retirement loan; travel and tours; dividend loans; salary loan; repackage special business loan; financing loan to those who would want to acquire motor vehicle and heavy equipment; medicine loan; optical, dental loans; and grocery loan.
These services are available within Ficco's 23 branches in Mindanao, six of which are in Cagayan de Oro.
For those who want to become members of Ficco, Cuenca is inviting them to attend first a membership seminar at its main branch in Corrales-Dolores Sts. or at any of Ficco's branches in the city and in select areas of Mindanao.