The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) has revoked the licenses of ALC IC Amji-Insurance (Kiev) and PJSC IC VONA to provide financial services due to the non-compliance of their ownership structure with the legislation. (Lviv), reported on the website of the regulator.
The decision to cancel the licenses was taken by the board of the NBU on March 2, 2023 in accordance with Article 381 of the law “On Financial Services and State Regulation of Financial Services Markets”.
The NBU informs that according to the last submitted financial statements for the year 2022 the amount of insurance premiums of the company as of December 31, 2022 was UAH 1.927 million, the value of assets – UAH 39.322 thousand, insurance reserves – UAH 270 thousand. The market share of the company on insurance premiums amounted to 0,006%.
According to the last submitted statements of IC “VONA” for 2022, the value of its assets amounted to UAH 31,098 mln. There were no insurance premiums, insurance reserves. The market share of the company on insurance premiums – 0,0%.
After the revocation of license the financial institution is deprived of the right to operate by the types of licenses withdrawn, but does not relieve the financial institution from its obligations under contracts for the provision of financial services.
IC “Amji Insurance” (until March 2019 – OTO “OTL-Insurance”) specializes in risk insurance. According to the data of the company, published on its website, as of the beginning of 2022 its shareholders were 16 individuals.
IC “VONA” (former IC Veltva) has been incorporated in October, 1995. Since 1997 it is a member of the Motor (transport) Insurance Bureau of Ukraine, the Kharkov Union of Insurers, “Insurance business” association and the Kharkov Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
In October 2013 IC “VELTA” has rebranded to PrJSC “Insurance company “WONA” and changed its location to Lvov.
According to the website of the insurer, its shareholder on January 1, 2022 is LLC “UKR SEL” (Lviv), which owns 99.9% of the insurer. Through it, Tatiana Barbaniuk owns 13,9986% of the insurer, Yaroslav Ishchak – 41,276%, Roman Kapustin – 44,816%.
The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) in 2022 revealed 4.5 thousand fraudulent websites that duplicate government websites in order to steal the data of Ukrainians, said deputy head of the NBU Alexei Shaban.
“Last year, the NBU revealed about 4.5 thousand such (fraudulent) resources, and this is much more than it was in 2021,” he pointed out during a press briefing on Wednesday.
According to him, the main authors of such phishing sites in Ukraine are the special services of the Russian Federation.
“If before the full-scale invasion, the cyber police recorded 15-20 thousand appeals of citizens concerning financial fraud, then in 2022, this statistic has increased by an order of magnitude,” he added.
He noted that due to the joint system of the NBU, National Cyber Security Coordination Center and mobile operator “Kyivstar” the time from detecting such sites to their blocking at the state level is 15 minutes.
“We find such resources and enter them into the system of blocking (…) The system allows you to appeal the inclusion of a resource to the blocked, but for a month of work we have not received a single such complaint, “- he pointed out.
The common project is designed to reduce user clicks on fraudulent sites by redirecting them to a page with a warning that the site was created by cybercriminals.
According to the NBU, during the first month about 120 thousand unique visits to this page were recorded.
The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) has imposed sanctions on eight non-banking financial institutions in the form of an obligation to eliminate violations and contributing causes due to the failure to provide information and documents.
Such decisions were taken by the NBU’s Committee for the Supervision and Regulation of Nonbanking Financial Services Markets on February 13, the regulator’s website reports.
The measures apply to Invest Solutions Factor LLC, Financial Company Bisfactor LLC, Investrum Financial Company LLC, Simple Credit Solutions LLC, Finance Dnipro LLC, Ambras Financial Company LLC, Global Financial Services LLC, and Finaktiv Financial Company LLC.
These non-banking financial institutions are obliged to eliminate violations by March 14, 2023.
The decline in Ukraine’s real gross domestic product (GDP) in the first quarter of 2023 compared to the same period last year will slow to 19% from 35% and 30.8% respectively in the fourth and third quarters of 2022, the National Bank of Ukraine has published this forecast in an inflation report on its website.
According to him, in the second quarter of 2023 the economy will begin to recover and immediately 11.7%, given the low base of the second quarter of last year, when the decline was 37.2%.
In the third and fourth quarters of this year, the National Bank expects growth to slow to 1.5% and 8.2%, respectively, and real GDP will grow by 0.3% this year after a 30.3% decline last year.
The NBU’s updated estimates of the GDP dynamics are worse than last October, when it expected the economy to decline by 17.5% in the first quarter of this year and to grow by 13.9% in the second quarter, and by 4% for the year as a whole.
For next year, the National Bank has worsened its growth forecast from 5.2% to 4.1%, and expects growth to accelerate to 6.4% in 2025.
“The baseline scenario is based on the assumptions of launching a new cooperation program with the IMF, conducting a coordinated monetary and fiscal policy, the gradual leveling of quasi-fiscal imbalances, in particular in the energy sector. Also, the baseline scenario assumes a tangible reduction of security risks from the beginning of 2024, which will contribute to the full unblocking of seaports, reduction of the sovereign risk premium and the return of forced migrants to Ukraine,” the report notes.
It also provides for the absence of new critical damage from shelling, as well as the successful work of the government to attract international aid for the energy sector and the intensive restoration or replacement of damaged infrastructure.
The NBU specifies that the baseline scenario assumes a reduction in net outflows from Ukraine this year to 0.8 million from 8 million last year and a gradual return of 1.5-1.4 million in 2024-2025.
The central bank adds that this forecast also assumes continued active international financial support for Ukraine of $38.6 billion in 2023, $20 billion in 2024 and $8 billion in 2025, up from $32.5 billion last year.
The strongest risk for this scenario, the National Bank calls the prolongation of the war and its escalation, estimating its probability from 25% to 50%.
With 15-25% probability the National Bank considers such risks as increased emigration and growing energy shortages due to damaged infrastructure and unbalanced state finances (freezing of utility rates, cuts in international aid, emission deficit financing).
The NBU also names among the moderate risks of the baseline scenario a delay in the program with the IMF and the termination of the “grain corridor”, but their probability is lower – less than 15%.
The report also mentions such factor as “Marshall Plan”, which can strongly influence and improve macro-forecast, but its probability is estimated by the central bank below 15%.
The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) expects that the grain harvest in 2023 will decrease by 15% compared to 2022 and will amount to 46 million tons, said deputy head of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) Serhiy Mykolaychuk.
“For this year, we assume that the grain harvest will be about 46 million tons and this is about 15% less than last year. For other crops, the situation is better. Somewhere even more than last year we allow for the harvest, somewhere less,” he said during a press briefing on Thursday.
Nikolaychuk noted that the harvest is one of the factors that the NBU took into account when revising the GDP forecast and when forecasting the trade balance and current account deficit.
The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) has improved its inflation forecast for 2023 to 18.7% (the October forecast was 20.8%), as the market expected, the regulator’s press service said Thursday.
“The NBU forecasts a slowdown in inflation to 18.7% in 2023. This will be facilitated by continued tight monetary conditions, lower global inflation and weaker consumer demand amid power outages,” the statement explained.
It is pointed out that the receipt of announced volumes of international aid and joint actions of the NBU and the government on boosting the market of domestic debt attracting will allow to avoid emission financing of the budget deficit and to balance the currency market.
The regulator expects that inflation will slow down more quickly in the years to come due to lower security risks, a full recovery in logistics and an increase in yields.
The NBU, in particular, predicts that it will fall to 10.4 percent in 2024 and 6.7 percent in 2025.
“The main contribution to inflation in these years will have an administrative component due to the need to bring tariffs for housing and communal services to market levels,” the central bank explained.
It is noted that over the past three months the annual inflation rate has remained almost unchanged.
Stabilization of inflationary pressure was facilitated by the de-occupation of territories, the expansion of food supply, measures taken by the NBU and weaker consumer demand amid Russia’s energy terror.
At the same time, price pressures remain significant due to the aftermath of the war, including the destruction of enterprises and infrastructure and disruption of production and supply chains. Inflation expectations remained elevated despite stabilization.
