ALBANIAN SAVINGS AND CREDIT UNION (ASCU)

Swiss Cooperation Office Albania
Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC)
• The high demand for credits on one
hand and the rather modest savings
deposits on the other hand, led to a
cash flow problem at the ASCU. This
problem can affect the project negatively,
because if the customers do not
receive a credit due to lack of liquidity
they surely will never deposit their
saving funds in the same bank.
2. Objectives and expected results
• The objectives of the project are to
overcome poverty and to assist entrepreneurs
in rural areas to progress and
strengthen economic activities by promoting
private sector development for
credit applicants without direct and
affordable access to credits offered by
the banking sector. The development
goal is to increase farm and off-farm
investment and saving services.
3. Activities
• The SDC supports the procurement of a
commercial credit in favour of the ASCU, in
order to overcome the cash flow problem. The
commercial credits have, however, a higher
interest rate than e.g. IDA credits; these costs
would either have been charged to the credit
applicant or have been covered by the ASCU.
Because of financial reasons both possibilities
make no sense. Therefore, the SDC will cover
the interest rate difference between the
commercial credit and an IDA credit as well as
the common application fee of 1% of the credit
amount in Albania and the risk of loss of
exchange.
• The SDC also focuses on the technical support
to the set up of the ASCU as well as
further special inputs, e.g. the financial support
of an annual audit by “Sofirom
Lausanne”, a company which is specialised in
micro credit establishments.
Swiss Cooperation Office
Rruga Ibrahim Rugova 3/1 Phone +355 42 240 102 www.swiss-cooperation.admin.ch
1019 Tirana, Albania Fax +355 42 234 889 tirana@eda.admin.ch