One of UNIA’s major tasks is development, unification, and implementation of efficient mortgage technologies and standards for lending, investment, insurance relationship, and real estate market. A key initiative in this area was development of the Residential Mortgage Lending Standards with engagement of some 50 Ukrainian banks operating at the mortgage lending market. These standards are supported by the National Bank of Ukraine and form the basis of the standards designed by the State Mortgage Institution.

Another important task for the Ukrainian financial sector is implementation of effective internal lending structure; risk management, scoring, and underwriting systems. UNIA, together with Bellwood experts and under support of the EU-funded technical assistance project, launched a consultancy project for UkrEximBank to assist UkrEximBank in building important components of the risk management in mortgage lending, such as:

• Credit risk: underwriting procedures, scoring system, and loan origination process;
• Operational risks;
• Legal risks;
• Initiative to mitigate credit and legal risks;
• Regulatory risks;
• IT solution; etc.

   

We do hope that such consulting services will be interesting for other Ukrainian financial institutions as well. UNIA has been working actively on unification of lending conditions with regard to optimal risks distribution, and summarizing of information on costs and quality of insurance services and professional appraisers’ and realtors’ services at the request of member organizations.

The next important area of UNIA’s activities is development of the mortgage market infrastructure, specifically, support and promotion of alternative distribution channels for mortgage products. Besides, UNIA, under assistance of the EU-funded Project, is planning to launch a new project in April 2006 to support Ukrainian banks in development of new mortgage products.

A very promising area is our cooperation with the international company, Credit Star, in development of IT solutions for the Ukrainian financial sector, in particular, scoring and underwriting tools for mortgage products and on-line lending broker systems. Introduction of a new program in developing agriculture mortgage is planned for the year of 2006.

UNIA specialists were heavily involved in formation and development of the State Mortgage Institution (SMI). SMI joined UNIA in mid 2005. UNIA will continue its assistance to SMI in improving its operation and extend collaboration with the Ukrainian banking sector. In addition, UNIA cooperates with the Cabinet of Ministers, Parliament, National Bank, and government regulatory agencies on the ongoing basis for the purpose of improving operation of the Ukrainian financial market.