Oschad will get help from international partners to make it easier for Ukrainian businesses to get loans

Oschadbank and the German government’s international cooperation organization GIZ (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit) have agreed to provide the bank with comprehensive specialized technical and financial assistance to expand access of micro, small and medium-sized businesses (MSMEs) to financial services. Representatives of Oschadbank and GIZ signed the relevant memorandum during the Ukraine Recovery Conference held on June 11 and 12 in Berlin.

The cooperation between Oschadbank and GIZ will continue within the framework of the project "Association Agreement between European Union and Ukraine in the field of Trade / EU4Business: SME Recovery, Competitiveness and Internationalizations" that GIZ successfully implements since 2021.

Oschadbank will receive a package of assistance, which includes:

• technical support on e.g. risk rating, adaptation of services and products for different customer segments, loan portfolio management and ESG risk management tools;
• support through the German Sparkassenstiftung implementing a blended grant facility
• financial/technical assistance to organize and participate in training programmes and competence development events that aim to expand the MSME portfolio and related services;
• technical support in the field of international cooperation;
• sharing of good practices and creating synergies with other market participants and stakeholders;
• consulting for MSME on exporting and improving business performance;
• consulting for Oschadbank's top management on the EU and ECB directives and ESG implementation to facilitate accession to the EU.

"We are grateful to our international partners who help Oschadbank to increase the volume of credit support to Ukrainian business. We are always happy to participate in such projects and are proud that, thanks, among other things, to this cooperation, we managed to more than double the bank's MSME loan portfolio during the full-scale war,” says Sergii Naumov, Chairman of the Management Board of Oschadbank.

“We aim to strengthen the institutional capacity of our partner banks to better serve small and medium-sized enterprises. In doing so, we facilitate SMEs' access to financial services from banks, thereby increasing their resilience and competitiveness,” states Hagen Ettner, Co-Programme Director of “Utilization and Implementation of the Association Agreement between the EU and Ukraine in the field of trade”, GIZ.

“Ukrainian small and medium-sized enterprises are one of the main pillars of the Ukrainian economy. It is particularly important to support them in times of adversity so that they can thrive in the future and be integrated into EU value chains. Thanks to the financial support of the German government, we can make this plan a reality,” says Armin Hofmann, Co-Programme Director of “Utilization and Implementation of the Association Agreement between the EU and Ukraine in the field of trade”, GIZ.

"German partners play an important role in supporting Ukrainian business during the great war. We have been cooperating with GIZ, German Sparkassenstiftung and others for many years. I am pleased to say that this cooperation continues and is expanding. Our clients have already felt the results of this cooperation, and the new project we have agreed on today will certainly help Ukrainian entrepreneurs receive more support at a time when they need it most,” comments Natalia Butkova-Vitvitska, Oschadbank Board Member in charge of MSMEs.