ABSTRACT Saving and Credit Cooperatives (SACCOs) are the main financial solution of the people who have low income level. But they have their own challenges that restrict their responsibility to their members and the economical contribution to a country. The study was aimed to identify the challenges & opportunities of rural saving & credit cooperatives (RUSACCOs), and identify the determinants of amount of credit taken by members. Primary and secondary sources of data were used. Interview questionnaire and FGD data collection tools were used. Multi stage sampling technique was employed to select the sample respondents. Accordingly, primary data was collected from 6 saving & credit cooperatives & a total of 134 sample farmers. Descriptive statistics and econometrics analysis methods were used. Descriptive statistics were used to compare the demographic, socio-economic and other institutional characteristics of the users and non-users of the credit. The comparison revealed that there was difference between the two groups of the users and non-users of the credit sample farmers regarding their age, family size, years of membership, sex, education level, total livestock unit, provision of different extension services and other characteristics. Tobit econometric model was employed to identify the factors influencing the amount of credit taken by members from cooperatives. A total of 11 explanatory variables were included in the model in which 6 variables were found to be significant. Of these, five variables namely sex, cooperatives extension services, years of membership and farm income were found to influence the amount of credit positively whereas age square and households house distance to cooperatives was found to influence amount of credit negatively at 5% & 1% level of significant respectively. Lack of knowledge and capacity of management committees & poor members’ participation, lack of appropriate support from cooperative promoters, member’s perception on borrowing is as risky and high interest rate and limited awareness of about cooperatives rules, principles & benefits by the members are the main challenges facing members. Cooperatives are also faced by lack of professional leaders and members failed to pay back loans on time. Even though the cooperatives had such challenges, there are opportunities that bring benefit to cooperatives like presence of active participant in cooperatives and supports from Government. Providing continuous education & extension services to farmers about cooperative and its benefits are the utmost priority areas of interventions to improve the performance of the cooperatives in the area. Key words: Challenges, Opportunities, Members, Saving, Credit, and Cooperatives