DAVAO CITY—The Cooperative Development Authority (CDA) has granted a special license to DigiCoop Technology Service Cooperative (DTSC), to provide technology platform for online transactions.
The CDA license issued to DTSC allows it to transform the country’s cooperatives from their traditional paper works and face-to-face transaction into the competitive world of web and mobile banking capability, and provide ease to its members who want to transact financially from the comfort and safety of their homes or work places using only their gadgets.
The CDA issued Memorandum 2021-14 in November last year, which includes guidelines for the registration of a Technology Service Cooperative (TSC), a special type of cooperative organized among registered cooperatives of all types and categories, the DigiCoop said.
The new type of license was prompted by the current and preferred online transactions to avoid physical contact amid the Covid-19 pandemic, which would be beneficial to the cooperatives that are serving many Filipinos in the communities and the countryside.
Under CDA’s TSC memorandum, DigiCoop is expected to introduce technological innovations, particularly in supporting members of its cooperative through e-commerce, portals, and innovative ways of bridging the gap in market access.
“We are honored to be the first to organize and apply for registration under this special type of cooperative. With this, DTSC envisions to offer e-commerce-related products to accelerate the digitization of cooperative operations among our members,” said Ann Cuisia, founding president and CEO of DTSC.
Assistant Secretary Vidal Villanueva III, head of the CDA’s Credit and Financial Services, Banking, Insurance, and Credit Surety Fund Cooperatives Cluster, said that “this step is a response to the changing needs of the cooperatives sector and community in general.”
“While some cooperatives—particularly the bigger ones—have already started their own digital systems, there is still room to improve their smaller counterparts’ access to online services. The special type of cooperative will give us the opportunity to build the digital infrastructure for our movement,” Villanueva shared.
The DTSC leaders include Fr. Anton Pascual, executive director of Caritas Manila; Retired Gen. Gilbert Llanto (Ret.), chairperson of the ACDI Multipurpose Cooperative; Roy S. Miclat, president of 1 Cooperative Insurance System of the Philippines (1CISP); Isagani Daba, First Community Cooperative (FICCO) representative; and Traxion Technology Services Cooperative’s Ann Cuisia, visionary and proponent of the digiCOOP platform of DTSC.
“As the first technology service cooperative in the country, DTSC aims to be a model cooperative federation for similar endeavors in the Philippines as well as in Asia and beyond,” Cuisia added.