Mouvement Desjardins

Desjardins Group

Type	Cooperative
Industry	Financial services
Founded	1900 in Lévis, Québec, Canada
Key people	Guy Cormier, President & Chief Executive Officer
Products	Chequing Accounts Insurance Stock brokerage Investment Bank Asset-Based Lending Consumer finance
Total assets	$260.7 billion CAD (2016)
Number of employees	47,655 (2017)
Website	desjardins.com

The Desjardins Group (or Mouvement des caisses Desjardins in French) is the largest association of credit unions in North America. It was founded in 1900 in Lévis, Québec by Alphonse Desjardins.

Located mostly in Québec and Ontario, it is a federation of 313 local Caisses populaires Desjardins, which serves more than 7 million members and clients.

After studying European credit institutions born in the 19th century, Alphonse Desjardins in 1901 came up an original solution adapted to north america. The basic principles are : Each local caisse is owned by its members and works for their financial success. Each member has one share and one vote. Therefore a caisse cannot be bought by another financial institution, which also would be restricted to one share and one vote. The caisses are devoted to regional economic development.

Between 2008 and 2010, total assets at Desjardins Group grew over 15% from C$151.9 billion (when it ranked sixth in Canada and first in Québec among financial institutions ahead of the National Bank of Canada) to over $175 billion in 2010. In 2006, it had 6,500 elected and volunteer officers and employed over 40,000 people and gave its members $483 million in patronage allocations and $64 million in donations, sponsorships and academic scholarships. Most of the latter sum was used on regional economic development and health programs as well.

The Desjardins Group has over 20 subsidiaries offering products and services related to insurance (Desjardins Financial Security, Desjardins General Insurance), real estate (Place Desjardins), venture capital funds (Desjardins Venture Capital) and brokerage (Desjardins Securities). The Desjardins Group, through subsidiary Développement international Desjardins, is also active in over 50 developing countries through technical assistance programs and various investments.