Appeal to the Government of the Republic of Estonia, the Prime Minister and the Riigikogu
The signatories of this initiative support the free association of Estonian people and companies through savings and loan cooperatives as Estonia’s own financial institutions for joint activities that build up our country and nation. We are not in favor of the draft of forced banking and state overregulation of savings and loan associations presented by the bureaucrats of the Ministry of Finance, which works under the interests of foreign banks.
1. The bill submitted by the Ministry of Finance, when it becomes law, is against the interests of depositors and borrowers of savings and loan cooperatives, depriving members as owners of cooperatives of important guarantees. Before the Second World War, the market share of savings and loan cooperatives in Estonia was 52% of the general banking market, and savings and loan cooperatives were therefore the pillars of the prosperity of our country and people. Cooperatives and joint activities come to raise the honor again!
2. Savings and loan cooperatives have been operating for decades around the world to offer their members (owners) more affordable loan and deposit services.
3. The new bill is cleverly designed to gradually limit the joint activities of savings and loan cooperatives, which starts with a ban on advertising and culminates in the fact that cooperatives cannot accept new members. The bureaucrats think that the joint action of the Estonian people is becoming dangerous!
4. Savings and loan cooperatives are established with the long-term benefits of their members in mind. The bill aims to transform HLÜ into quick loan and debt collection societies providing short-term loans. We can’t agree with that!
5. Total volume of banking sector deposits on 31.08.2023. as of 31.5 billion euros. In the same period, the deposits of HLÜs make up a total of 0.1 billion euros, i.e. 0.3% of the volume of deposits in the banking sector. As a result of the above, savings and loan cooperatives do not constitute a significant market share today, so that the statement made in the draft can be accepted that cooperatives have a competitive advantage over banks. On the contrary, foreign banks have a competitive advantage compared to cooperatives.
6. Knowledgeable and enterprising Estonian people have gathered in the cooperatives, who have also become the owners of the cooperative and who are familiar with the activities of the cooperatives. The incitement work of the Ministry of Finance has failed for years, and now they want to deliberately scare the people of Estonia by submitting an absurd bill, in order to extinguish people’s collective action through it and leave foreign banks in Estonia essentially in a state of monopoly.
7. The draft of the officials of the Ministry of Finance narrows the right of the owners of about 14,000 HLÜ members to decide on their property. However, according to the Constitution of the Republic of Estonia, every citizen has the right to use and dispose of his property as he sees fit, in order to earn income for himself and his family in the best way. Therefore, we are decisively opposed to the attempts of officials to impose a bureaucratic dictatorship on savings and loan cooperatives and our members, in order to prevent the cooperative activities of Estonians through state overregulation.
We demand that the officials of the Ministry of Finance take into account the substantive proposals of Estonian savings and loan cooperatives, as required by the nationally valid Good Practice of Inclusion (https://riigikantselei.ee/kaasamise-hea-tava). We demand that the new law on savings and loan cooperatives be the basis for the powerful growth of savings and loan cooperatives as a financial cooperative of the Estonian people, which would ensure the common success of our country and people!
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