Financial services of business entities, their tasks and functions

Microcredit organizations. Microcredit organizations are regulated mainly by two laws, such as the Law “On Micro-finance” and the Law on “On Micro-credit Organizations”, which were adopted in September 2006. The framework law “On microfinance” provides key definitions and outlines basic rules for the provision of microfinance services. In particular, it allows the provision of microfinance services to both banks and non-banks: the latter include microcredit organizations (MCOs) and pawnshops.

Table 2

Mikrokreditbank’s Programs

In 2017, there were 76 non-banking financial institutions including 30 micro credit organizations (MCOs) and 46 pawnshops operating in the country. 20 Microcredit organizations cannot take deposits, and they are allowed to offer three microfinance products namely, microcredit, microloan and microleasing. The differences between these types of services relate to the size of the products and their purpose, as well as microfinance product recipients and a few other conditions; they are summarized in Table 3.

A recent World Bank study of opportunities for enterprise competitiveness in Uzbekistan suggests that smaller enterprises and unbanked markets are finding value from microcredit institution services.

Table 3