Governance, Regulation and Mutual Financial Intermediaries Performance

The paper presents results of a research on the the impact of the governance, regulatory and supervisory environment on the performance of financial cooperatives (FC). I seek to respond to two different questions. The first is whether there are clearly identifiable models of financial cooperative governance, regulation and supervision (Ramp;S). The second is, assuming that such models are identifiable, whether it is possible to develop a methodology to evaluate the level of system-wide performance of these models in a credible manner. Based on an analysis of 16 cases of quot;maturequot; FC systems I obtain the following result. There appear to be two dominant models of governance, Ramp;S, one that I call the federated-network model, and one that I call the atomized-competitive model. These two systems present certain constant characteristics accross groups of countrie that seem to be related to historical factors contributing to their development. Further, FC operating under one of those systems, the federated-network appear to display either equal or superior (but not inferior) levels of performance than those operating under the other