Anisia Credit Union was formed in the Western Ukrainian town of Lviv in 1995 as a civic institution in the years after the Central Moscow regulatory authority ceased to control Ukrainian financial sector. In 2002, Ukraine created and approved a Credit Union law and Anisia became the first Credit Union to meet the requirements and register under this law. In order to encourage access to their enterprise loan services, Anisia decided to move away from the high deposit requirements to access a loan (only a symbolic membership contribution is required to be a member) and instead relied on voluntary deposits and external capital to build a basis of capital to finance member businesses. Anisia currently operates through 11 branches in the Western part of Ukraine. In 2018 Anisia partnered with a new organization called Ukraine Key Initiative (UKI) which is promoting the collateral-free group loan methodology based on the Grameen Bank framework in Bangladesh. Anisia and UKI are launching this methodology to make it even easier for poor entrepreneurs and farmers to access enterprise credit.