The following post was written by the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU), which serves as the country's central bank.
The USAID Credit for Agriculture Producers' Technical Assistance Project in Ukraine (hereinafter – the CAP Project), implemented by World Council of Credit Unions (WOCCU), has actively joined the National Bank’s efforts to support Ukrainian credit unions.

Thus, through the CAP Project initiative, USAID allowed the United Credit Unions of Ukraine to use the finance previously provided by the Project for agricultural lending development to ensure the liquidity supply of credit unions. This will allow them to quickly repay the savings of some depositors.

WOCCU and the CAP Project also plan to establish an international platform that will accumulate financial and technological resources to restore the credit union operations in Ukraine. To that end, under the auspices of WOCCU and the CAP Project, a dialogue is being initiated with institutions engaged in social lending and microbusiness financing.

In addition, WOCCU, the credit unions of Canada, the United States, Poland and Lithuania are ready to provide financial support to Ukrainian credit unions for the rapid resumption of their operations. Thus, since the first days of the war, Ukrainian community-based credit unions in the United States and Canada have already provided $ 1 million to support Ukraine.

“The National Bank appreciates the efforts of international partners aimed at supporting the credit union operations in Ukraine. Assistance to credit unions in these difficult times for our country is invaluable”, said Olga Maksymchuk, Director of the Nonbank Financial Services Supervision Department of the National Bank of Ukraine.

For reference

WOCCU stated that it harshly condemns the Russian government’s decision to invade the independent and sovereign nation of Ukraine and use military force to cause massive devastation there. WOCCU has also made the decision to suspend all engagements and activities with Russia across all its entities and initiatives.

The National Bank has recently made a number of changes to the regulatory requirements for credit unions. Changes focus, in particular, on supporting credit union operations. These innovations were introduced by the resolution of the Board of the National Bank of Ukraine dated March 6, 2022 № 39 “On regulation of nonbank financial services market participants, nonbank financial groups, payment market participants, collection companies and legal entities licensed