Baku, Azerbaijan, Aug. 15
By Anvar Mammadov - Trend:
The Azerbaijan Credit Unions Association (AKIA) is still in need of new sources of funding, AKIA Chairman Jalil Suleymanov told Trend.
The state agencies to which the Association appealed have not yet responded to these appeals, the Chairman of the AKIA said.
"Previously the main source of financing for credit unions in the country were loans provided by the National Fund for Entrepreneurship Support (NFES), the State Committee of Azerbaijan Republic for Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons Affairs, and the Ministry of Agriculture, but now the issuance of financing is suspended. We also appealed to the Financial Market Supervisory Authority of Azerbaijan with a proposal to amend the legislation so that credit unions could attract deposits. There is no answer yet, but we hope that the attraction of deposits will help credit institutions to lend more actively to small businesses in the regions," Suleymanov said.
The head of AKIA also noted that there is an urgent need for credit unions in the regions, only some of which can now work at their own expense.
"A total of 38 credit unions operate in full force in the country today, and they operate at the expense of own funds. At the same time, it should be taken into account that banks do not want to work in remote rural areas, and the people of those zones have access to loans only with the help of credit unions," Suleymanov said.
Currently, there are 76 credit unions in Azerbaijan, although their number exceeded 100 at the beginning of the year. In January of 2017, the FIMSA had revoked the licenses of 12 credit unions that didn’t actually provide financial services during the year, these credit unions didn’t provide financial statements or distorted data in them, and didn’t provide annual audited reports, either.
In June of this year, the FIMSA had revoked the licenses of 21 credit unions, for the same reason.