The World Council of Credit Unions’ International Advocacy and International Projects’ teams scored a major victory this week when the Ukrainian Parliament overwhelmingly approved the first reading of a new draft law on credit unions. The law must now pass a second reading as the final step for adoption.

If adopted, the law would lay the foundation for updating the country’s legal framework for credit union operations and build a level playing field for credit unions in the financial services market.

Members of Parliament (MPs), with support from the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU), developed the language for the Draft Law on Credit Unions after extensive analysis, feedback and advocacy input from World Council International Advocacy and World Council International Projects’ Credit for Agriculture Producers (CAP) Project, a USAID-funded activity in Ukraine.

Specifically, the draft law:

• expands the list of financial services credit unions can provide to their members.
• improves licensing and corporate governance requirements for credit unions.
• allows for increases in the levels of capitalization and stress resilience of credit unions to strengthen the reliability of the sector and consumer confidence in it.
• allows for remote annual general meetings (AGM), in lieu of in-person gatherings.

World Council International Advocacy, the CAP Project and other stakeholders will now work with parliamentarians to prepare necessary amendments for the draft law’s second reading and final passage, ensuring a legal framework that will help the Ukrainian credit union sector thrive.