Status and prospects for the development of credit unions in Ukraine

Credit unions increase social orientation and efficiency of the market economy by providing their members with necessary financial services on a non-profit basis. Unfortunately, the role of credit cooperation is underestimated in Ukraine. The article investigates factors, condition and prospects for the credit unions’ development as an important component of Ukrainian economy. Both optimistic and pessimistic scenarios of credit unions’ development in Ukraine have been provided based on forecasts involving methods of analytical equalization of dynamic series, correlation and regression analysis and extrapolation. Analysis of the main indicators of credit unions’ activity in Ukraine between 2004 and 2016 made it possible to detect that between 2008 (when indicators were the highest) and 2016 there was a downward trend in the number of credit unions (by 41%), membership (by 76%), total assets (by 66.5%), deposit and loan portfolios (by 79 and 68%, respectively) with a relative stability of capital ratio (by 39%). Creating a cooperative cluster which will be able to combine the material, monetary and labor resources of all major types of cooperatives in the country at the regional level has been outlined as one of the means to increase the credit unions competitiveness in Ukraine. Therefore, the purpose of the article is to assess the state and forecast trends in the development of credit unions in Ukraine in order to identify the prospects for their functioning in the future