Tag Archives: Financing

Establish A Mongolian Credit Union! Why Not? (You have to be Mongolian)



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As with many developing countries, liquidity is an issue in Mongolia, especially for individuals without significant financial assets to start with. Banks often won’t make loans to those with limited income. Is there an alternative?

Dating from 2011, the Mongolian Law on Credit Unions allows a Credit Union to be established with at least 20 individuals Mongolian citizens as participants. The Credit Union, formed voluntarily by its members is to be governed in a democratic manner with each member having voting rights. The Credit Union is owned collectively by its members. A Mongolian company or other entity may be a part of a Credit Union.

There are some requirements for Credit Union members, each must be resident in the same locality, and there must be some unifying or communal relationship between the members, either in terms of business, industry, or a religious, social or educational commonality.

The Credit Union will be established with a charter approved by a meeting of its members. A management board and Audit Board must be elected to manage and oversee the Credit Unions affairs. Of course when dealing with people’s finances, a license is required. After acquiring the license to operate the Credit Union is able to offer credit and savings services, but these are limited to the Credit Union’s members.

There is no minimum amount of capital the Credit Union must have to be established. The assets of the Credit Union shall consist of the contributions of the members. The Credit Union may charge fees upon membership. Profits may be distributed in accordance with the Credit Union’s Charter. A single member may not contribute more than 10 percent of the Credit Union’s total assets.

Holding a Perfected Pledge in Mongolia just got 100% Better!



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As part of the firm’s project finance practice, we do a lot of work with securities, and particularly pledges of movable and immovable property. When advising clients, we often receive pushback and incredulity when we explain Article 54.2 of the Law on Enforcement of Court Decisions which states, “A pledgee shall be responsible for other creditors’ payments.” Clients rightly ask, “what is the value of holding the pledge if after receiving the pledged assets you have to give it all away to other creditors of the pledgor?”

However, a plain reading of Article 54.2 led to the inevitable conclusion that the law was specifically making pledgees a first priority security interest in collateral responsible for payments owed by the pledgor to other creditors, even where the pledgee has not done or agreed to anything whereby it would otherwise assume any of those obligations.

Article 54.2 provided legal justification for Mongolia’s Court Decision Enforcement Agency, which is responsible for the enforcement of valid court decisions, to demand a pledgee take action to recover funds due to other creditors of a pledgor, even by going so far as to require redistribution of proceeds earned via the sale of the collateral and in some cases the pledgee’s own assets! All of this required no additional court decision or ruling against the pledgee. Naturally, once we convince a client of the meaning and implications of the law, the typical reaction would be, “Well, that’s just not fair!”

Luckily, the Mongolian Constitutional Court agrees. The court recently concluded that Article 54.2 resulted in outcomes in violation of Article 16.3 of the Constitution of Mongolia. Article 16.3 protects, “The right to fair acquisition, possession and inheritance of movable and immovable property.” The court ruled that due to violations of that provision of the constitution, enforcement of Article 54.2 shall be stopped.

This is great news for investors and foreign investment in Mongolia. In a country were major mining and infrastructure projects are financed via complex securities transactions with international banks taking pledges over local real estate and other assets, the legal regime provided for by Article 54.2 increased the risk of these international banks and made acquiring funding even more difficult that it would normally be. We consider this a step in the right direction for Mongolia and foreign investment in the country.