Ukrainian banks in January-June this year increased net profit by UAH 11.4 billion, or 16.8% compared to the figure for the same period of 2023 – up to UAH 79.04 billion, the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) said.
“The main drivers of profitability are maintaining a high net interest margin and almost zero allocations to provisions for losses from active operations,” the NBU explained the reasons for the profitability growth.
“In the first half of the year, only seven small banks out of 62 solvent banks were unprofitable with an aggregate loss of UAH 171 million,” informed the National Bank.
According to his data, the profitability of the main assets of banks during the second quarter further declined. In particular, it was falling fastest for NBU certificates of deposit, in connection with which banks reduced the volume of investments in these securities, the regulator said.
At the same time, rates on domestic government loan bonds (OVGZ) also went down, but the volume of investments in them grew.
“It was due to the increase in assets that banks maintained a sufficiently high net interest margin and increased income,” the regulator emphasized.
It is noted that the return on equity of banks for the first half of 2024 amounted to 48.4%, which is lower than the same indicator of the first half of 2023, which amounted to 56%.
The volume of income tax accrued by banks for the first six months of this year amounted to UAH 21.9 billion compared to UAH 12.4 billion for the comparable period last year, as the income tax rate was increased from 18% to 25%.
According to the NBU, last year the net profit of the banking system amounted to UAH 82.8 bln after accruing UAH 76.2 bln of profit tax at the increased rate of 50%.
