Cooperatives are a way of doing business in which ownership and benefits belong to the people who use the services. They offer an alternative to profit-maximising business operations.

The United Nations has declared 2025 the International Year of Cooperatives. In Finland, cooperatives have always been part of everyday life and have created a sense of community, strengthened localness, and offered their members the opportunity to have an impact.

Above all, for me, cooperatives mean cooperation, responsibility and equality. They are needed now perhaps more than ever.

OP Uusimaa represents cooperative activity at its purest because we, the owner-customers of the OP cooperative bank, fully own our bank.

OP Uusimaa has a Supervisory Council and a Board of Directors consisting of the bank's customers. In addition, we have an elected Representative Assembly, which consists of the bank's owner-customers.

I became more interested in the cooperative bank's operations when I learned about the benefits it offers to its owner-customers.

OP's loyalty programme has offered us owner-customers tangible benefits for 25 years. Now the programme has been revamped to be clearer and more diversely rewarding.

In future, we will be able to decide for ourselves what to use the accumulated bonuses for. A new option is to direct bonuses directly to fund investments, for example.

I’m especially happy that we’ll see a dog again in our communications – a Labrador retriever puppy named Bonus. Our previous PR dog became famous about 15 years ago by eating bills that totalled zero – the expenses had been paid for with bonuses.

After the loyalty programme was renewed, the name also changed: the former OP Financial Group became OP Pohjola. The name change aims to highlight a strong financial and insurance entity, as in addition to banking, Pohjola Insurance also plays a significant role in OP's operations.

The heart of our bank, OP Uusimaa, is the Representative Assembly, which consists of us, the owner-customers.

The Representative Assembly acts as the voice of owner-customers and a channel of influence to the bank's administration. Its task is to ensure that the bank's operations develop in a way that respects the interests and values ​​of its members.

The Representative Assembly approves the bank's financial statements, decides on the use of banking results, elects the members of the Supervisory Council and outlines important development directions.

These are important times for the bank's cooperative operations – it’s an election year for OP's Representative Assembly. As owner-customers, we now have the opportunity to influence and elect as our representatives the people who will monitor the operations and direction of our bank for four years.

It is important that the Representative Assembly is diverse and reflects its owners. This means people of different ages and life situations who have a genuine desire to develop the bank for the common good.

I voted for the first time in the elections for the Representative Assembly of my own OP cooperative bank in the early 2000s. At that moment, I really understood what cooperatives mean: everyone's voice is truly heard.

Now I warmly encourage every owner-customer to vote. Although voting is easy, it has great significance. Every vote cast reinforces the basic idea of ​​cooperatives that decisions are made together for the benefit of all members.

As an added bonus, 20 fund investments worth one thousand euros will be raffled in this autumn's elections among OP Uusimaa owner-customers who vote and participate in the raffle.

The voting period for the OP Uusimaa Representative Assembly elections is 3–13 November. OP Uusimaa owner-customers of all ages may exercise their voting rights. You can vote conveniently online. Postal voting material has been sent to customers who do not actively use online services, or who do not have electronic banking user IDs.

 Read more about OP Uusimaa's Representative Assembly elections.‍

Annukka Nikola
Chair of the Board, OP Uusimaa
Chair, OP Cooperative’s Supervisory Council