The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) has added a systemic risk buffer to the list of capital buffers that should be generated by banks to increase their capability to withstand risks during periods of financial and economic instability, the press service of the regulator has said.
The changes were approved by NBU Board Resolution No. 131 dated December 3, 2021 on approving amendments to the instruction on the procedure for regulating banks in Ukraine, and entered into force on December 7, 2021.
To control the generation of capital buffers by banks in the approved amount, the term “combined capital buffer” has been introduced, defined as the aggregate amount of capital buffers set for a bank.
According to the updated instructions, banks independently generate a combined capital buffer. The regulator sets the size of the systemic risk buffer in the range of 0-3% of the bank’s total risk. The decision on the start date and the procedure for the generation of the systemic risk buffer by banks, its size or increase, the schedule for the gradual achievement of the approved size (if necessary) is made by the NBU Board, and shall contain information on the grounds and purposes of introducing/increasing the size of this buffer, a list of banks that are obliged to generate it and/or the criteria on the basis of which such banks are determined.
The press service recalled that in 2020, the NBU postponed the generation of conservation buffers and systemic importance buffers by banks due to the introduction of quarantine and restrictive measures related to the spread of the COVID-19 infection.
The National Bank will notify banks about the resumption of the formation of these buffers in the first quarter of 2022. The NBU will inform the date of the start of the formation of capital buffers and their values in advance, which will allow banks to take measures to comply with the requirements, the NBU said.
The number of Ukrainians who have faced fraud in any online shopping has increased from 22% to 45% since 2020, surpassing the residents of Bulgaria and Portugal, where this figure was 40%, the OLX Ukraine press service reported.
The relevant data were obtained during a study in five countries (Ukraine, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria and Portugal), which was conducted by OLX Ukraine and OLX Group.
According to them, the highest rates of cyber fraud were recorded in Poland and Romania: in Poland, 50% of users faced phishing, and in Romania – 60%.
Residents of Romania (79%) were the most aware of fraud with fake websites (phishing against buyers and sellers). In Ukraine, this figure is 48%, and in Poland – 54%.
“Importantly, 76% of Ukrainians who faced phishing in 2021 did not lose money thanks to their attentiveness, knowledge of rules and timely contact to the site’s support service. In 2020, this figure was 14 percentage points less – 62% did not lose money,” OLX Ukraine said.
In addition, it is noted that, compared to a similar survey by OLX in 2020, the proportion of those who will contact the police has significantly decreased among Ukrainians. “However, after meeting with the swindler, the respondents of the listed EU countries and Ukraine behave the same way: the majority tries to solve the problem on their own, and only every tenth applies to the police or local authorities,” OLX said.
The study also revealed that both residents of Poland and Ukraine in the majority of cases received external links to dangerous sites in instant messengers: in Poland, 83% of respondents received malicious links in WhatsApp, while in Ukraine they received them on Viber – also 83% of all attacks. Only 6% of respondents in Ukraine and 18% in Poland received phishing links via SMS. Some 2% of respondents in Ukraine and 10% in Poland were attacked using spam mailing.
At the same time, 59% of users from Romania, Portugal and Bulgaria replied that they stopped the conversation after receiving a phishing link. In Poland, respondents know that they should not share payment information with strangers (79%) and open links from unfamiliar people (75%), and should only communicate on the OLX platform (69%).
“In general, according to the World Economic Forum, cyber threats have already been included in the top five risks for the global economy. Both in the EU and in Ukraine, the low level of trust and the relatively small number of calls to the police create a wide space for fraudulent activities. Now 40% of Ukrainians already know that links sent from strangers can be a fraudulent attack, so they do not open them and do not discuss financial issues in instant messengers. Some 15% of users found out about it thanks to our educational site Online Protection. At the same time, in Poland, 75% of users have such knowledge, and Ukrainians definitely have something to strive for in terms of personal cyber literacy,” Head of the business analytics department at OLX Ukraine Viktor Nobiuz said.
Online polls were conducted among 100,000 respondents in Ukraine, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria and Portugal.
The Ministry of Economy proposes to determine the procedure for paying fines to the state budget for advertising discriminatory job advertisements, according to a draft government decree.
The document was made public on Tuesday on the ministry’s website.
According to it, the Ministry proposes to oblige the advertiser to pay a fine within 15 days after receiving the relevant document from the State Labor Service or to challenge such a fine in the central executive body or in court.
In case of non-payment, the fine is proposed to be collected in court, as indicated in the draft resolution.
According to the law on advertising, it is prohibited to indicate the desired age of candidates, to offer jobs only to men or women, with the exception of specific jobs, and to establish other discriminatory criteria in advertising for a vacancy. For violation, the law establishes a fine of ten minimum wages (currently UAH 65,000).
Kyiv Sikorsky International Airport currently focuses on the development of the cargo direction, according to the company’s website with reference to the head of the airport board of directors, Denys Kostrzhevsky, said.
“Now we are focused on the development of the cargo direction and see a significant potential. And for this, it is necessary to build high-quality infrastructure at the airport – freight warehouses, customs warehouses, to establish logistics chains. This is one of our strategic goals,” Kostrzhevsky is quoted as saying.
He noted that the market of passenger and freight traffic in Ukraine will develop at an outstripping pace, since the state has a colossal transit potential.
He also said that at the moment there is another investment direction related to the expansion of the range of ground services and the construction of hangars.
“Hangar storage of aircraft is a relevant service, especially when it comes to small aircraft, which are expensive and, in fact, must be stored in the garage. We put a Mercedes, which costs $100,000, in the garage, while we keep an aircraft for $20 million for some reason under the open sky. And now this service is in great demand on the market,” he said.
Ukrainian banks’ cash exchange rates on 07/12/21
Source: Interfax-Ukraine
The volume of cargo transported on the Dnipro River in January-November 2021 amounted to more than 13.2 million tonnes, which is 31% more than in the same period in 2020.
According to statistics posted on the website of the Ministry of Infrastructure of Ukraine, most of all were transported: construction materials – 8.8 million tonnes (an increase of 72%), grain – more than 3.1 million tonnes (at the level of last year) and metal products – more than 1.1 million tonnes (a decrease of 30%).
In addition, for the 11 months of this year, 24,500 tonnes of dangerous goods were transported along the Dnipro.
The number of passages for the specified period was 14,700 (an increase of 40%), of which internal – 12,900, sea – 1,800.
The monitoring of vessels on the Dnipro River was carried out by the river information service of the Delta-Pilot branch of the Ukrainian Sea Ports Authority.
