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But, the TTCU is on the rebound. Yesterday we spoke to the general manager who told us how the credit union is still standing strong. Jomarie Lanza reports.

With 7 thousand members and 26 million dollars in assets - the Toledo Teachers Credit union has grown exponentially in the 26 years since the institution was founded by 87 Toledo teachers with just seven thousand dollars in cash.

Much of that growth has come here at the Bella Vista branch - which has also gone through its troubles recently with a fraud scandal. But, the TTCU management says it has swept in with a new staff and much stricter controls.

Leopoldo Romero, General Manager, Toledo Teachers Credit Union
"We do quite a lot of training under the regulations we must have in place an internal auditor, compliance officer and soon to come is a risk manager and an IT security manager all of those are placed by the regulations for international standard practices and we do training with staff we do training with the regulator we do training with consultants and it's very costly to keep up with and so our surpluses have eroded some, because of all these expenses we have to put in place but keeping up with the tremendous growth we hire quite a lot of people we are at 36 employees now and all of them go through training and participate in their own way and uplift themselves through the universities and so on."

The new branch manager is Bryan Cardinez - brought in to sort things out after the last manager was terminated:

Bryan Cardinez, Branch manager, Bella Vista Branch
"All has been going well in terms of policies and procedures the staff adheres to the recent updates that were made. Both our operations manual and the credit manual were updated and the staff here are following the policies and procedures in place."

Leopoldo Romero, General Manager, Toledo Teachers Credit Union
"We have very very good policies in place. We have a code of ethics. We have NDA's all signed by all the employees and officers, that is why when the media comments they must be careful of what they comment because what Jules said on national TV that we are running the credit union like a Panades shop that is not so. We have all measures in place. We have very strong internal controls now."

And while. it is among the smallest credit unions in the country, in this community, it is too big to fail:

Ilda Sacba, TTCU Member
"Well, the Credit Union has supported us in everything. We have a fabric store. The Credit Union knows that we work without problems and we also have one of the best records at the credit union, And thanks to the Credit Union, we have two stores."

That's the story of Bella Vista - one of the fastest growing communities in the country with robust economic activity:

Bryan Cardinez, Branch manager, Bella Vista Branch
"For my 7 months here I can tell that the community here at Bella Vista."

"Is very, very active in the economic growth of TTCU, we have several farms that do payroll with us and so forth and they help us to grow economically."

"In terms of farmers and other business owners here in the community they have accounts here with us they save with us they have shares, accounts. they help us to boost the income for the credit union and they are member owners as well. So we as the credit union, we help them financially and they help us as well."

And with this moving forward, there is also a sober acknowledgement of what went wrong:

Leopoldo Romero, General Manager, Toledo Teachers Credit Union
"Our problem there was that we had given authority to the branch manager to approve loans to a certain limit and also to manage with the other employees. So we gave him an autonomy to work, trusting that all things would go well. And that is where we kind of not implement all of the controls."

Now having corrected that, the credit union is moving confidently towards its AGM this weekend - after the first one did not get a quorum:

Leopoldo Romero, General Manager, Toledo Teachers Credit Union
"I want to ensure our membership that our financial position is very strong, our reserves are above what the law requires and that we continue to be one of the best credit unions in the south."