Performance of Irish credit unions

This thesis is an exposition of the structural fragilities of the Irish credit union Movement focusing on relative performance and ICT technology adoption. To date Irish credit unions have evolved to a transitional stage of development and still embody a strong cooperative ethos with optimal membership value at is core. The evolution of the Irish credit union industry has stalled as the economic fallout from the Irish banking crisis has highlighted poor operating practices and their development as an industry has stagnated. In Ireland regulatory inadequacies have exacerbated poor investment decisions and loan book mismanagement in cred it unions. This has resulted in an escalation in loan arrears and losses in both investments and bad debt. Stagnation can also be partly attributed to the failure to create a common ICT platform, resulting in individual credit unions pursuing incompatible ICT solutions. The recent Commission Report provided Irish credit unions with a set of responses to these fragilities, two of which, sector restructuring and shared services through ICT adoption, are the themes of this thesis. The empirical analysis uses a novel panel dataset for the period 2002•2010 to firstly identify the sector's strengths and weakness by measuring a credit unions performance relative to some 'best practice' idea. Then using unique survey data, the diffusion of ICT technology, in the form of a website to provide information and services, is investigated to identify the determinants of adoption and its effects on a credit unions cost and performance over the period.