I will describe it briefly. Visually speaking, Desjardins Group's structure is similar to an hourglass. Members make up and own the caisses. The caisses have certain governance and decision-making instruments. Representatives ultimately elect the president of Desjardins Group. All the caisses are grouped together under a single federation.
What's more, this cooperative network owns a series of share-capital subsidiaries to serve all the other market niches and financial sectors: life insurance, property and casualty insurance, securities and trust services.
Roughly speaking, the hub of the structure is the federation, which is not your average central body in the general sense. The federation has very real powers when it comes to the Group's policies. One thing that I would say has defined Desjardins Group and contributed to its cooperative growth is that it has all these small entities operating separately and independently, while at the same time coming under a network that is overseen by the federation. And that federation has a real say in the Group's main policies. Because of that principle, the Group is able to thrive and move to another level. Oftentimes, the challenge that cooperatives have is being able to grow and move beyond a certain plateau.