The number of structural units of Ukrainian banks in the third quarter of 2023 decreased by another 55 to 5,098 due to the closure of branches of the liquidated Concordbank and Ukrbudinvestbank, according to information published on the NBU website.
According to the information, the second largest state-owned Oschadbank by assets in the third quarter reduced the number of branches by one to 1182, retaining its first place among all banks in the country by this indicator.
PrivatBank, the largest bank by assets, kept the number of branches at the same level in July-September – 1131.
Raiffeisen Bank rounds out the top three, adding five branches to its 324 operating branches, becoming the leader in terms of branch growth in the third quarter of this year, while at the beginning of the year its network shrank by 27 branches to 323.
The fourth-ranked Ukrsibbank significantly reduced its network in July-September, from 230 to 222, and now FUIB, which closes the top five and whose network remained the same in the reporting period, is only one point behind it.
Two other banks have more than 200 branches: Ukrgasbank (218, minus one for the quarter) and A-Bank (202, no changes).
Sense Bank, which was nationalized in July, reduced its network by two branches to 138, making it one of the top ten banks with the largest networks in the market, followed by Accordbank (147) and Credit Agricole Bank (141).
OTP Bank (down to 71), Metabank (down to 25) and Piraeus Bank (down to 13) each had one less branch.
At the same time, RadaBank opened three branches in July-September and increased its network to 28 outlets, while Asvio Bank opened two outlets and its network reached 30 branches across the country.
TAScombank, Cominbank, MTB Bank, RBC Bank and Unex Bank each opened one outlet in the third quarter, expanding their networks to 94, 54, 43, 21 and 19 outlets, respectively.
In general, the rate of decline in the number of bank branches in the third quarter of this year accelerated to 1.1% from 0.8%, which is, however, lower than the 2.7% in the first quarter, as in the fourth quarter of last year it was 3.3%, in the third quarter – 7.9% and in the second quarter – 8.1%.
In February of this year, the National Bank proposed to the Ministry of Finance, as the owner of state-owned banks, to impose a moratorium on the reduction of their branch network during the war.
According to the updated data, since the beginning of 2022, the number of branches has decreased by 420 at Oschadbank, 366 at PrivatBank, 50 at Ukrgasbank, and 5 at Ukreximbank, to 48.
As of the beginning of October 2023, state-owned banks accounted for 53.3% of all bank branches in Ukraine.
As reported, the number of structural units of Ukrainian banks in 2022 decreased by 20.2%, or by 1349 branches, to 5,336 thousand.
