Credit union director prohibited for ‘misappropriating’ funds

The Central Bank has issued a prohibition notice against former credit union director David Stamper, after he was found to have misappropriated a "significant sum of money" in his management of a members' prize draw.

Mr Stamper is a former director of Citybus Employees’ Credit Union Limited, a credit union with over 2,800 members and over € 13 million in savings.

An investigation into Mr Stamper’s management of the members’ prize draw in Citybus CU found that Mr Stamper was responsible for the misappropriation of “a significant sum” of money from Citybus CU between 2010 and 2015. The regulator said that Mr Stamper co-operated fully with the Central Bank’s investigation.

Mr Stamper is now prohibited, effective May 30th 2018, from carrying out any controlled functions, including pre-approval controlled functions, in any regulated financial service provider “for an indefinite period”. A criminal investigation is also ongoing, the Central Bank said.

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Seana Cunningham, director of enforcement and anti-money laundering with the regulator said: "The Central Bank will continue to hold individuals to account when they fall short of expected standards of fitness and probity. These high standards are what the financial services industry and the wider community rightly expect of its senior individuals. Mr Stamper's conduct fell far short of these standards, justifying the issuance of a prohibition order of indefinite duration, which is the most serious possible outcome to a fitness and probity investigation."

Mr Stamper’s prohibition is the latest in a line of scandals to hit the credit union sector. In 2017 Rush Credit Union in north Dublin was closed, after the Central Bank was unable to track down winners of 15 car draws, involving an outlay of € 220,860, between November 2012 and April 2016, while earlier this year a report from the Central Bank found that - credit union staff won prizes in 30 per cent of the credit unions who ran such draws over a three year period.