CityNews – 15th October 2019, over 20 representatives of the Chiang Mai Teacher’s Thrift & Credit Cooperative who have fallen victim to the co-op’s debt refinance system came to demand change. Their demands are that their loan repayment structure has meant that while they continue to repay their debt, including interest, various fees of the coop has meant that a total of 10 million baht debt remains for over 1,500 teachers.
A representative revealed that this financial restructuring is unfair to cooperative members since the members have repaid the debt, both the principal capital and interest amounts, in monthly installments as usual, but their dividend was deducted to pay back more of the debt. It was found that no other cooperative in any province had done this kind of refinancing. So, the representatives have called for the cooperative to change this finance restructuring, including returning the dividend to its members very soon as retired teachers are struggling under the financial burden.