The BC Financial Services Authority (BCFSA) says it is investigating a credit union promoted within the Lower Mainland Filipino community, after members of that community began raising questions and concerns about it.
The investigation follows a public service bulletin posted on December 21 by Vancouver-Kensington MLA Mable Elmore, who warned on a Facebook post about an “unauthorized credit union.”
The BCFSA says in a news release that it is “actively investigating the alleged creation and development of a proposed credit union that has publicly promoted itself as both Aubergine Credit Union and First Filipino Credit Union.
“BCFSA has not authorized either Aubergine Credit Union or First Filipino Credit Union to operate in British Columbia.
“BCFSA warns that consumers should only use the services of authorized B.C. credit unions in order to avoid organizations that are engaging in unlawful business.”
But according to the Aubergine Credit Union’s chairwoman, Eula Stein, there may not be much for the BCFSA to investigate, as the credit union isn’t doing any banking and is still months away from getting incorporated and registered.
It appears the project is little more than a pipedream at this point, promoted by some founding members who may have gotten ahead of themselves in promoting its formation before financing was in place.
The founders, whom Stein describes as family and friends, have leased space at Henderson Place Mall, but hopes of having it open early this year have been dashed.
Some of the original founding members who considered putting up some of the capital needed have since backed out, and a number of the original board of directors have quit.
“Aubergine, we’re not in operation,” Stein told BIV News. “We’re still in the womb. We did not give birth yet. There is no deposit, there’s no people doing anything. Aubergine is nothing yet.”
Forming a new credit union would require a minimum of $1 million in capitalization. Attempts to raise the $1 million within the Filipino community through pledges fell apart, and a number of the board members quit, Stein said.
The project is still being advanced, Stein added, but it is now to be financed by friends and family.
Meanwhile, no banking is being done, so to characterize it as an unauthorized credit union is misleading, she said.
The Aubergine Credit Union has been promoted within the Filipino community to address some of its unique challenges, including remittances back to the Philippines.
“I’ve been receiving calls and enquiries from our kababayans (compatriots) about a supposed Filipino credit union called Aubergine,” Elmore wrote in a December 21 Facebook post. “I asked for information from the B.C. Ministry of Finance, and this is what I was officially told: Aubergine is not an incorporated credit union.”
Winnie Tan, a concerned member of the local Filipino community, told BIV News that when she began hearing about the credit union proposal, she was surprised to learn that two of the people promoting the venture were Francisco “Jun” Cortes and his wife, Zeala Cortes.
The Port Moody husband-and-wife business team were implicated in a sweepstakes fraud in 2016 that resulted in a civil forfeiture action against their companies.
Port Moody Police confirm that no charges were ever laid as a result of an investigation into an alleged sweepstakes scam, and fraud allegations were never proven in court.
However, the BC Supreme Court did approve a consent order for the Civil Forfeiture Office to seize $116, 151 from the bank accounts of various businesses controlled by Zeala and Francisco Cortes, including Easy Padala, CNM Communications and Elan Wellness Inc.
Zeala and Francisco Cortes are or were sole directors of Easy Padala and CNM Communications. CNM Communications was dissolved in 2020, according to B.C. government records.
“I recently was approached by several individuals regarding the said couple… regarding solicitation of money for a credit union or bank, which the husband and wife claim will be opening at the Henderson Mall in Coquitlam in January 2023,” Tan told BIV News.
She noted that Eula Stein is the sister of Zeala Cortes. Stein is the publisher of The Filipino Star Magazine, which also publishes The Filipino Now – one of the local Filipino community newspapers that has covered the proposed Aubergine Credit Union in a number of articles – one of which was written by Zeala Cortes.
The Cortes appear to have no formal titles or roles with the Aubergine Credit Union. Neither are board members, for example.
But one former board member told BIV News that the couple were the ones who approached her and her husband to invest in the new credit union.
“Zeala Cortes and Jun Cortes came to us,” Arlene Nicanor told BIV News. “They said that they are looking into applying for a credit union here in B.C. They needed $1 million for certification.”
The Nicanors initially agreed to put up $700,000, but they ended up having second thoughts and backed out, and Arlene Nicanor quit the proposed credit union’s board of directors.
The most recent story about the Aubergine Credit Union in The Filipino Now newspaper -- written by Zeala Cortes, and published in the November-December 2022 issue -- said a credit union for Canadian Filipinos is needed because of the unique challenges they face.
One challenge is that temporary foreign workers don’t have access to credit. Another is that remittance services have a hard time securing banking services.
“The system and processes of the credit union will be built with remittance companies in mind,” Cortes writes.
A full-page ad on the back page of that issue of the newspaper is for Easy Padala, the remittance service that the Cortes have been promoting since 2010, when they appeared on Dragon’s Den.
Zeala Cortes told BIV News that she did try to recruit founding members for the proposed credit union, including raising money in the form of pledges, which were to be held in trust. She added that she and her husband are also investors in the proposed credit union.
“I only talked to four people,” she said. “All of those had pledges and they didn’t fulfill their pledge.
“We’re just investors,” she said, adding: “We haven’t asked anyone for money since June.
"Two years ago we were already talking to BCFSA what needs to be done. They told us we can go out to your community and ask for pledges, so it was just a pledge."
