Brief History & Profile of the Cooperative Bank of Cotabato

The Cooperative Rural Bank of North Cotabato, Inc. (CRBNCI), now the Cooperative Bank of Cotabato (CBC), was established by virtue of PD No.175 and LOI No. 23. This is in line with the Marcos' regime objective to strengthen the cooperative movement in the country during the Martial Law Period. The said government decrees allowed for the creation of Samahang Nayons (SN's), a pre-cooperative which eventually became the member/owners of the Cooperative Bank. Said Samahang Nayons were the organized and created under the supervision of the defunct Department of Local Government and Community Development (DLGCD) now the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG).

Samahang Nayons were organized primarily for the purpose of organizing farmers to educate themselves and to establish business enterprise.

The creation of Samahang Nayons then paved the way for the organization of Kilusang Bayan Bangko Rural ng Hilagang Kotabato or Cooperative Rural Bank of North Cotabato, Inc. (CRBNCI) with an original member of Seventy Nine (79) Samahang Nayons.

In order to strengthen the Samahang Nayons, the Municipal Katipunan ng mga Samahang Nayons (MKSN) were organized in every municipality to work out in the campaign of forced savings in the form of Barangay Savings Fund (BSF) which became the source of capital in putting up the envisioned "bank of farmers". Another source of capitalization was the three percent (3%) retention from all loans availed by SN members under the Masagana 99 Agricultural Credit Program of the Government. The campaign of pooling the Five Hundred Thousand Pesos (P500,000.00) needed capitalization for the bank's establishment was duly achieved through the efforts of the Federation of the Samahang Nayons in the Province of Cotabato.

The amount collected as capital from the Samahang Nayons was deposited with the Philippine National Bank (PNB) Kidapawan Branch. Since the needed capitalization was ready, the documentary requirements followed.

The incorporators attended a seminar at Ateneo De Manila For Cooperative Bank formation. After the necessary documents were ready, the bank was registered with the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) as a corporation with the DLGCD) as a cooperative and Central Bank of the Philippines (CBP) now Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) and given permit to operate on April 18, 1979.

The establishment of a Cooperative Bank did not come as a piece of cake for the incorporators. Problems were encountered along the way. One of them and probably the most difficult is the acceptance of the idea that "farmers" would be establishing a bank. Interviewed incorporators recollected that they received all sorts of discouragement and ridicule from various sectors of society.

This problem was also the cause that it took nearly five (5) years to convince the Samahang Nayon members to pool in their investment for the needed capitalization.

Though the processing of the documentary requirements was tedious, the warmth accommodation of Central Bank employees to authorize representatives proved very inspiring.

The purchase of the lot also underwent bit of difficulties for the lot purchased has had several other prospect buyers and officers had to haggle to be able to purchases the property Barangay Lanao, Kidapawan. The original plan was to purchase a one (1) hectare lot but since there were budgetary constraint, half of it was only bought. The large area purchased signified the vision of incorporators that one day the Cooperative Bank that they established would grow big.

The construction of the building was through construction by administration and officers had to use available resources and linkages to cope with the constrained budget.