USAID/WOCCU CAP Project Support Leads to First Credit Union Loan Issued to a Legal Entity in Ukraine

Thanks to long-term advocacy efforts by World Council of Credit Unions' (WOCCU) International Advocacy team and the USAID/WOCCU Credit for Agriculture Producers (CAP) Project, Credit Union Anisia in Lviv Oblast issued the very first credit union loan to a legal entity in Ukraine.

The CAP Project and WOCCU international Advocacy were instrumental in making that possible through their input on the new Law on Credit Unions in Ukraine that took effect on January 1, 2024.

Prior to this year, credit union legislation in Ukraine was outdated and allowed cooperative financial institutions to issue loans only to individual members, even if they operated businesses.

After a thorough review of all policies and procedures with assistance from the CAP Project, CU Anisia prepared its first legal entity loan and issued it to Grammax Dairy Farm. The farm is run by Ruslan and Svitlana Onyshkevych, who have been individual borrowers of the credit union for years.

By taking a loan as a legal entity, the farmers get a number of benefits they didn’t have before, including:

• the possibility to treat the loan interest as a company expense.

• simplified crediting of funds to the company's account and transparency of accounting.

• the creation of a credit history for the company.complete balance sheet information, which facilitates the company’s financial condition analysis for other lenders.

The first UAH 950,000 (approximately US $24,000) loan was issued to Grammax Dairy Farm as a three-year line of credit, thanks to the $1 million USAID/Worldwide Foundation for Credit Unions' Liquidity Fund, which ensures liquidity for lending to Ukrainian farmers through credit unions.