Oschadbank and Western NIS Enterprise Fund jointly grant another social loan in Luhansk region

Enterprises and individual entrepreneurs that prove social focus of their activities can get loans at a rate of 5% to 10% per annum under the “Social Entrepreneurship” program.

The Lysychansk “Ekotekh” company, a producer and supplier of technical gases and solid fuel boilers for heating private households, industrial facilities and institutions, meets those social criteria. Under the agreement with Severodonetsk City Council of Luhansk Oblast, the company has at its own expense made solid fuel boilers for two schools in Severodonetsk, which individually provide the necessary temperature conditions by contrast with the centralized heat supply. The school boiler-rooms now use environmentally safe fuel and the heating cost is 30% lower comparing with the competitors. It provides a solid benefit to those city residents, whose children can study in comfort, as well as to local authorities, since the transition of two schools to the individual heating saves 720,000 UAH to the city annual budget.

The funds from Oschadbank provided with financial support of the Western NIS Enterprise Fund will allow further transfer of social facilities to individual heating with an alternative, environmentally safe fuels. Ecotekh plans to build boiler-houses for three educational facilities in Severodonetsk. This project gives a chance to create 40 jobs, especially for socially disadvantaged people. On top of it, the company plans to build its own rehab center for clinical rehabilitation of the company employees, where 10% of the patient capacity will be allocated for the disabled.

‘A social effect drawn from the affordable loan is the criterion that applications of WNISEF Impact Investing Program are most expected to meet. Ekotekh LLC offered a business plan with a triple social effect: new jobs for internally displaced persons, solving the heating problem of social facilities with ensuring energy efficiency and energy independence, and the further completion of the rehab center at its own earned resources’, commented Vasyl Nazaruk, the Impact Investing Program Manager of Western NIS Enterprise Fund.

Oschadbank social loans are granted to those small enterprises and individual entrepreneurs who ensure the implementation of social projects and initiatives or solve some social problems of the disadvantaged groups as a part of their activities. Preference is given to projects that support primarily the citizens of Ukraine who suffered from the conflict in the East, including IDPs from southern and eastern regions, people with disabilities, low-income women and members of other disadvantaged social groups. See the detailed loan program terms at https://umaef.org/programs/impact-investing/.

As part of the program, Oschadbank provided social loans to enterprises in Donetsk, Dnipropetrovsk, Luhansk and Cherkasy regions. In October, Oschadbank granted the first social loan to an individual entrepreneur.