The decrease in the share of non-performing loans (NPL) in the banking sector of Ukraine to 35% from 36.3% in August was facilitated by the correct regulatory policy of the National Bank and less risky new loans that banks are issuing now, the founder and partner of the group of companies, Andriy Volkov, commented on the statistics of the central bank for the specified month to the Interfax-Ukraine agency.
He considers the decline in the share of problem loans in the banking system to be a natural process for several reasons. First, the NBU introduced rather strict rules for the assessment and provisioning of the loan portfolio, after which the banks began fruitful work on restructuring NPLs, collecting them or selling them to specialized companies. Secondly, the country is gradually resuming lending – both retail and corporate. However, due to the filing of the banks’ risk management and NBU requirements, it is now less risky and produces much fewer non-performing loans. Accordingly, the portfolio of banks began to grow again, which means that the share of old problem debts began to decline.
According to Volkov’s forecasts, this trend will continue, and the share of non-performing loans will continue to decrease.
At the same time, he drew attention to where these troubled debts are concentrated.
“Commercial banks, for the most part, have resolved or are successfully solving issues with non-performing loans: they have restructured more or less “live” debts or debts associated with the shareholders and the bank management, collected collateral from non-performing loans, sold or are selling loans, with the collection of which they cannot cope independently. Therefore, the main volume of bad debts was concentrated in state banks. And this is the next point of development for the Ukrainian NPL market, in which changes must take place – the system of working with problem debts of state banks will change or, more realistically, the sale of bad debts will begin, because without this, neither development nor sale of state-owned banks is possible,” the financier believes.
In addition, according to him, solving problems with problem debts in state banks is also on the agenda of international creditors and donors of Ukraine. Therefore, the government as a shareholder, the NBU as a regulator, as well as the supervisory boards of state banks are forced to pay sufficient attention to them.
As of August 1, 2021, ten banks issued 1,917 loans to small, medium and micro-businesses (SME) through portfolio government guarantees totaling UAH 5.007 billion, the Ministry of Finance reported.
“Liabilities on the principal debt, which are partially secured by state guarantees on a portfolio basis, amounted to UAH 2.316 billion. This is about 59% of the total limit of guarantees provided in 2020 (UAH 3.93 billion),” the Ministry of Finance said on its website.
According to it, in July this year, banks provided 122 such loans for a total of UAH 735 million with a share of the state’s liabilities of UAH 306 million.
In terms of the number of loans issued, PrivatBank is in the lead – 945 loans for UAH 859 million in total, which is 100% of the limit of such guarantees provided to the bank in 2020. The second largest bank is Oschadbank – 680 loans for UAH 2.036 billion, according to the data of the Ministry of Finance.
“The program is in the greatest demand in Kyiv, where, in total, 151 loans were issued for UAH 542 million. In Lviv and Dnipropetrovsk regions, which are among the top three, these figures are 136 loans (UAH 340 million) and 129 (UAH 300 million),” the ministry said.
By type of economic activity, most of the loans, partially secured by state guarantees on a portfolio basis, were issued in the areas of wholesale and retail trade (675), agriculture (558) and processing industry (277).
The city of Odesa in June this year attracted five-year loans from the state-owned Oschadbank, Ukreximbank and Ukrgasbank for a total of UAH 1.2 billion, and the cities of Lviv, Novomoskovsk and Khmelnytsky – three more five-year loans for UAH 350 million.
According to the information of the Ministry of Finance on its website, apart from Khmelnytsky, all loans were obtained at a floating rate pegged to the key policy rate of the National Bank of Ukraine.
In the case of Odesa, the loan price was the NBU key policy rate + 4.5%: Oschadbank and Ukreximbank each allocated UAH 450 million, and Ukrgasbank – UAH 300 million.
Lviv managed to attract funds the cheapest of all – UAH 220 million from Ukrgasbank at the NBU key policy rate + 2.5%, while the smaller city – Novomoskovsk (Dnipropetrovsk region) raised UAH 70 million from Ukreximbank at the NBU key policy rate + 5.3%.
Khmelnytsky was able to get UAH 60 million from Ukrgasbank at 11.9%.
The volume of mortgage lending in April 2021 amounted to UAH 789.1 million, which is a third more than in March and 10 times more than in April 2020, when the issuance of new mortgage loans almost stopped, according to the results of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) survey of banks.
According to the NBU on Wednesday, 997 agreements were concluded in April, which is a third more than last month and 7.1 times more than in April last year.
The NBU noted that in general, over the four months, banks issued 2,808 mortgage loans totaling UAH 2.2 billion, which is 2 times more in terms of the number of agreements and almost 3 times more in monetary terms compared to the corresponding period last year.
According to the survey, 90% of mortgage agreements in April were drawn up with five banks, which indicates the concentration of the mortgage lending market.
The NBU said that in April, the volume of loan issuance for the purchase of primary real estate increased by 1.5 times, to UAH 43.2 million, and secondary real estate – by a third, to UAH 168.5 million.
According to the results, the secondary housing market continues to dominate significantly in terms of the number and volume of lending, in particular, the share of mortgage agreements for the purchase of housing in the secondary market in February amounted to about 87% in terms of all new loans.
It is indicated that the average amount of a loan for the purchase of housing continues to grow and in April it amounted to UAH 791,000, including the average amount of a new mortgage loan for the purchase of primary real estate in the reporting month amounted to UAH 925,000, and secondary real estate – UAH 771,000.
According to the central bank, in April the average effective rate of a mortgage loan in the secondary market fell to 13.5% compared to 14.0% in March, and in the primary market it remained at about 17.4%.
The authorized banks issued 512 loans under the Affordable Loans 5-7-9% program for UAH 1.6 billion over the past week, and in general, from the start of the program, the number of loans exceeded 18,100 for a total of UAH 47.5 billion.
As reported on the website of the Ministry of Finance, out of 31 banks participating in the program, the leaders in issuing loans are PrivatBank (agreements for UAH 4.4 billion), Oschadbank (for UAH 4.9 billion) and Raiffeisen Bank Aval (UAH 8.95 billion).
Authorized banks over the past week issued 592 loans under the Affordable Loans 5-7-9% program for UAH 1.9 billion, and in general, from the start of the program, the number of loans exceeded 17,600 for a total of UAH 45.9 billion.
The Ministry of Economy reported on the website that UAH 1.3 billion of the total amount of contracts concluded last week are loans to replenish working capital at 0%, UAH 480 million are loans to refinance the previously issued loans, and the amount of investment loans totaled UAH 194 million.
The Ministry of Finance, in turn, noted that out of 31 banks participating in the program, the leaders in issuing loans are PrivatBank (5,800 agreements for UAH 4.2 billion), Oschadbank (almost 2,400 agreements for UAH 4.5 billion), and Raiffeisen Bank Aval (1,900 loans for UAH 8.7 billion).
