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Coop Investment

My Ayala Coop Experience – Part III

ut what was really the purpose of my membership and why did I terminate it in the end?

When Ayala Coop was introduced in our company, I never really planned to sign up with them. First of all because I don’t like loans. Not that I hate loans or that I never had a loan or have borrowed money from someone else, but I am not just comfortable with it.

I know a few of my colleagues who availed of Ayala Coop’s loan products to buy high-end cellphones or other gadgets while some of them used the money to renovate their house, to pay for their kids’ tuition and even to fund for their travel and getaways.

I have nothing against them. It was their money and they have all the rights to use it for whatever purpose they want. But obviously, more members take advantage of the loan products and services rather than the investment side of it. 

I can’t speak much about the coop’s patronage refund and rebates because I didn’t avail of any loan. But based on their reports, their interest rates seem lower compared to other lending companies and banks.

After reading their brochure repeatedly, I finally decided to sign up. My main purpose was to save a portion of my salary by investing it in the Coop. And by investing, I was hoping to earn higher returns than what the normal bank savings account offers. So I never really thought of availing their loan products even if it was very easy to apply and get approved.

That was my purpose. But after giving it some thoughts, I realized that my money would be better off in another investment vehicle. That time I was already thinking of investing in the stock market. Who would be satisfied in the first place if you know that your P10,000 investment only earned a one-time 30 pesos in almost 2 years. Little did I know that a bigger cash dividend was on its way to my account. Only then I realized that Ayala Coop was worth a portion of my investment portfolio had I not terminated it.

Too late… Now I’m thinking if I could still reactivate my membership knowing that I’m no longer employed with the Ayala Group of Companies.

I guess it’s an opportune time for me to reassess my investment objectives and continue learning how the different investment tools work so that I could choose those that match my current financial status, risk appetite, and investment goals.

How about you? Have you been a member of Ayala Coop or any other cooperatives? How was your experience with them? Share it with us by leaving a comment below.

Click here to read – My Ayala Coop Experience- Part I

Click here to read – My Ayala Coop Experience- Part II

Disclaimer: This post is for informational purposes only. I’m not an employee of Ayala Coop and I don’t endorse any of their products or services. If you’re interested to know more about this company, you may contact them directly or visit their website for more details.

Categories
Coop Investment

My Ayala Coop Experience – Part II

I signed up with Ayala Coop August of 2012 by filling out the membership form through our site HR. After a few days, my application was approved and I was deducted from my salary for my first contribution as an Ayala Coop member on August 31, 2012. By the way, I chose to commit P500 contribution for my share capital via automatic salary deduction which with my previous company was every other Friday.

My P500 per pay day contribution continued until March 15, 2013. I went on leave (without pay) since then because I was ordered to bed rest due to having a ‘high risk’ pregnancy. My total contribution by then was P7,000 less P100 for the membership fee. So what I had on my online account was P6,900.

On April 2013, I received a mail from Ayala Coop informing me that my dividend for 2012 will be credited to my BPI payroll account by the end of the month.

I was excited! Guess how much I got?

Php31.94

Since I only started my membership in August 2012, my total contribution for 2012 was only P4,400. And P31.94 was roughly 0.73% profit. Not bad! Had I put my P4,400 in the bank, I doubt if I ever earn the same interest even if I didn’t touch it the entire year.

In September 2013, I emailed Ayala Coop and asked them if I could continue my contribution through direct deposit instead of the usual automatic salary deduction since I was on prolonged leave from the company. They approved it and so I enrolled Ayala Coop as merchant in my BPI Express Online Account. I paid P3,100 to add to my share capital that time which was P6,900. Therefore I had a total of P10,000 paid-up capital by December 2013.

In March 2014, I decided to terminate my Ayala Coop membership because I planned to resign from my company come May of the same year. So I sent a request of membership termination directly to Ayala Coop via email on March 16. I was told that the termination process would take about two weeks or half a month before my share capital gets credited to my BPI account. After a month and a half of consistently following up with them, it finally showed up on my account on May 2.

I received my total share capital of P10,000. No more, no less. 

I thought that was it. My membership with the coop was over. But on May 30, I was surprised that I received P477.58 on my BPI account. I already resigned from the company effective May 17 so I didn’t expect any amount to come in to my payroll account. Plus, I received an email previously from one of their finance managers that said,

“Please note that members without regular salary deduction for share capital build up will not be entitled to dividend.”

So I really didn’t expect to receive a dividend for 2013 because I had irregular contributions. Surprisingly, when I logged in to Ayala Coop’s website, it proved to me that I really got a dividend of almost 5% from my total share capital.

I guess you know what I’m thinking now. I wished I didn’t terminate my membership with Ayala Coop because they truly provide a promising potential return of investment through dividend distribution. Not to mention their tagline, which to me, is what a cooperative really is all about.

“Ayala Coop,

Ang Ayalang nagkakaisa, sa kaunlaran sama-sama”,

Click here to read – My Ayala Coop Experience- Part III

Click here to read – My Ayala Coop Experience- Part I

Image Source:www.ayalacoop.com,Pixabay.com,http://www.captaindividend.com/2013/10/recent-dividend-increases.html

Disclaimer: This post is for informational purposes only. I’m not an employee of Ayala Coop and I don’t endorse any of their products or services. If you’re interested to know more about this company, you may contact them directly or visit their website for more details.

Categories
Coop Investment

My Ayala Coop Experience – Part I

Ayala Coop or Ayala Multi-Purpose Cooperative (AMPC) is a cooperative owned by regular employees of the Ayala Group of companies and its subsidiaries. It was founded on May 15, 1995 by 21 Ayala Group employees with an initial capitalization of P10,500.

If you’re curious on how and where I got all these information from, I actually still have the brochure that they provided to us back in 2012. During that time, Ayala Coop had more than 19,000 members across Ayala Group with a capitalization of Php 800 million. In the Chairman’s Report on their website, the year 2013 ended with 26,210 members while member’s equity rose to Php 1.3 billion. The Coop is looking forward to a more productive year this 2014.

So how did I know about Ayala Coop?

My previous employer was part of the Ayala Group of companies. When our HR Staff announced via email that there’s such thing as Ayala Coop, in which employees can apply for a loan, it became “trending” among the employees almost instantly. I don’t know what’s with the word “loan” that seems to have a magnet that attracts people easily.

Coop members are not only given the opportunity to avail of the loan products and services and receive patronage refund on their interest payments but are also entitled to earn dividends on their paid-up capital.

Now, what am I talking about?

The main source of funds of the Coop comes from members’ share capital contributions. In short, paid-up capital is the amount of share capital paid by you as a member or shareholder. If it’s still confusing, think of it as your total contribution (how much have you contributed/shared to the Coop?)

Dividend is a payment made by the Coop to its members or shareholders, usually as a distribution of profits. When a corporation earns a profit or surplus, it can either re-invest it in the business or it can distribute it to shareholders, or it can do both. With Ayala Coop, cash dividend is released through direct deposit to the BPI account of members.

Patronage refund, on the other hand, is a rebate on interest you paid on your loans. Now, what is rebate? It is a deduction from an amount to be paid. In this case, rebate is a deduction from the interest of your loan.

For more information about Ayala Coop, you may visit their website here.

Whew! That was kind of a long introduction. And I’m sure some of you are still confused with the terms. Don’t worry, I understand. Read on and hopefully you’ll find it easier to understand once I share my own experience with Ayala Coop (with the actual numbers).

Click here to read – My Ayala Coop Experience- Part II

Click here to read – My Ayala Coop Experience- Part III

Source Credits: www.ayalacoop.com, pixabay.com, wikipedia.com, investopedia.com

Disclaimer: This post is for informational purposes only. I’m not an employee of Ayala Coop and I don’t endorse any of their products or services. If you’re interested to know more about this company, you may contact them directly or visit their website for more details.