Net sale of dollars by the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) rose from $133.7m, the lowest value in the last 11 months, to $262.6m this week, the regulator’s data show.
According to them, the sale of currency increased from $156.8 million to $263.0 million, while the purchase fell back to almost zero, although the National Bank managed to buy more than $50 million on the market in the previous two weeks after a long break.
The official hryvnia exchange rate weakened by almost 66 kop. – From 38.1410 UAH/$1 to $38.7998 UAH/$1 – the lowest level in the history of the national currency. At the same time, market participants note that the decline occurred with a relatively small volume of trading.
On the cash market, the hryvnia exchange rate followed the interbank rate, but with a smaller amplitude: a strong weakening in the first three days and relative stabilization at the end of the week. As a result, during the week it decreased by about 33 kop. – from UAH 38.53/$1 to UAH 38.86/$1. At the same time, according to the NBU, despite the weakening of the exchange rate in the first half of the week, the negative balance between the volume of foreign currency purchases and sales by the population decreased during these days: from $28.6 mln on Monday to $10.3 mln on Wednesday
At a press conference on March 14, representatives of the National Bank said that by the end of April they expect external financing in the amount of $10bn or more, which will allow to restore reserves, while before that Ukraine had received only $1.2bn since the beginning of the year.
At the same time, the NBU noted that such non-rhythmic external financing will not lead to any shocks on the currency market.
As reported, at the end of February, the NBU’s net sales fell to $1.50 billion from $2.53 billion in January, $3.55 billion in December and $2.45 billion in November.
However, in February, external support amounted to only about $0.8bn, so international reserves fell by 3.8% or $1.47bn to $37.05bn after falling by 4.9% or UAH $1.98bn in January.
The National Bank in January lowered its forecast for Ukraine’s international reserves at the end of 2024 to $40.4 billion from $44.7 billion.
Payment system NovaPay remained the leader in transfers of funds within the country by system in 2023, but the share of transfers made through it again decreased – to 32% from 35% at the end of the first half of 2023 and 45% for May-December 2022, according to the data of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU)
Payment system Moneycom LLC “Swift Garant” for the year increased its market share to 17.57% from 2.51% in May-December 2022, jumping from seventh place in the ranking to second place, which was previously occupied by the payment system LEO, whose registration was revoked by the NBU in March last year.
In the second half of 2023, Moneycom also surpassed Financial World Ukrainian Payment System LLC, increasing its market share by 5.2 percentage points.
PrivatBank’s PrivatMoney moved from sixth to third place in the ranking, with its market share increasing from 2.61% in 2022 to 15.98% by the end of 2023. In particular, PrivatMoney’s market share increased by 10.3 p. p. in the second half of last year. This allowed the payment systems City 24 FC Phoenix, Financial World and Postal Transfer of Ukrposhta JSC, whose registration was revoked by the National Bank in the second half of 2023, to be ahead of the payment systems City 24 FC Phoenix, Financial World and Postal Transfer of Ukrposhta JSC.
As a result, “Financial World” for the year fell in the rating from the third place to the fourth, although its share increased from 12.72% to 15.00% (with a slight decrease of 0.6 p.p. in the second half of the year).
Rounding out the top five with 5.35% is Platiservice payment system of the same name LLC, which jumped from eighth place in the ranking in 2022 (1.74%). The company managed to bypass City 24 FC Phoenix, which took the seventh position with a share of 4.16% in 2023, positioned between Postal Transfer (5.34%) and LEO (1.48%).
In terms of participants, the share of NovaPay decreased to 32.23% (from 45.46% in 2022 and 35.58% in the first half of 2023), from fifth to second position went Swift Guarant, whose share increased from 3.79% to 20.66%, from fourth to third – FC Kontraktovy Dom with an increase in share from 9.92% to 13.06%, from sixth to fourth – PrivatBank with an increase in share from 2.61% to 12.36%. Ukrposhta with 5.35% (12.22%), which was second a year earlier, rounds out the top five.
According to the NBU, 844.55 million domestic transfers worth UAH 728.01 billion (or $19.9 billion in equivalent) were made in 2023, the average amount of one transfer within Ukraine amounted to UAH 862. For comparison for May-December 2022 transfers were 446.35 million for 292.6 billion UAH.
It is indicated that as of January 1 of this year, activities in the country were carried out by 35 systems of funds transfer, of which – 26 resident and nine non-resident.
The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) fined ODO SK “Premier Garant Profi” in the amount of UAH 595 thousand for violation of requirements in the field of financial monitoring.
As reported on the website of the regulator, the fine was imposed for improper performance by the institution of duties in full to submit to the requests of the National Bank reliable information, documents, copies, extracts from documents relating to the implementation of the institution of the requirements of the legislation in the field of prevention and counteraction to legalization (laundering) of proceeds of crime, financing of terrorism and financing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
In addition, the fine was imposed for violation in terms of non-compliance of the institution with the requirements of the content of contracts concluded with agents, as well as in terms of the company’s failure to take measures to obtain the permission of the head of the institution to establish business relations in respect of clients whose ultimate beneficial owner is a politically exposed person.
As reported, earlier in January this year, the NBU has already fined SK “Premier Garant Profi” in the amount of UAH 51 thousand for violation of requirements in the field of financial monitoring.
IC “Premier Garant Profi” was registered in 2011. Specializes in risk insurance. According to the company’s data, its shareholder is Elena Ermolova owns 99.99% of the company indirectly through LLC “Alpha Lex LTD”.
The 2.9% decline in hryvnia deposits in January after a 4.6% increase in December was seasonal and not related to the discussion of the draft law on mobilization, as evidenced by the 2.3% increase in hryvnia deposits in February, National Bank of Ukraine Governor Andriy Pyshny said.
“From year to year, customer account receipts increase at the end of the year and decrease at the beginning. This is a logical trend that was also present in peacetime. Businesses and the government try to complete all payments, including salaries, by the end of the year, and at the beginning of the next year, people spend or invest these funds,” Pyshnyi explained the seasonality effect.
According to him, the National Bank did not see any noticeable impact on the dynamics of deposits from the draft law on mobilization and “fake news” about the alleged introduction of taxation on all card transactions, which was refuted by the Ministry of Finance.
“Moreover, in the first weeks of its (the draft law on mobilization) discussion, the balances continued to increase. In addition, the relevant parliamentary committee has clearly stated that it will not support the provision on blocking accounts. This is possible, as it is now, only in court,” he emphasized.
Pyshnyi also clarified that the central bank did not make “any breakthrough innovations” regarding the disclosure of banking secrecy in February.
“We only clarified the terminology in accordance with the changes in the legislation on access to information, which the authorized state bodies had had before these changes in accordance with the established procedure. The NBU will continue to support initiatives aimed at combating the shadow sector, while strictly upholding the protection of the confidentiality of banking operations in accordance with international standards. we have only clarified the terminology,” the NBU governor said.
The NBU on its Facebook page followed the governor and reminded that in 2023, the amount of hryvnia funds held by households in banks increased by UAH 121 billion, or 20.5%, and reached a historic high of UAH 711 billion, and as of early March, households kept about UAH 707 billion in hryvnia accounts in banks.
“These indicators demonstrate confidence in banks and the national currency, and the share of time deposits of individuals in hryvnia increased by 4.2 percentage points over the year. Despite the widespread war, the level of dollarization of household deposits decreased by more than 2 percentage points to about 34%,” the regulator said.
The reference exchange rate of the hryvnia to the US dollar on the interbank foreign exchange market as of 12:00 a.m. on March 7, 2024.
Indicator 06.03.2024 07.03.2024 07.03.2024 Change, %.
Reference hryvnia to US dollar (UAH/$) 38.3099 38.1029 -0.54
The leaders of the Ukrainian insurance market in terms of collected net insurance premiums in January-September 2023 were: ARKS Insurance Company (UAH 2.378 billion), TAS Insurance Group (UAH 2.601 billion) and Unica Insurance Company (UAH 1.984 billion) (all based in Kyiv).
No. Name of IC Net premiums Growth rate Written premiums Growth rate Assets Reserves
1 ARX 2378 +6.8% 2760 +21.5% 5455 2838
2 TAS 2601 +54.7% 2542 +47.7% 3696 2486
3 UNIQ 1984 +9.4% 2381 +23.8% 4557 2114
4 VUSO 1693 +86.2% 2005 +78% 1726 1087
5 USG 1632 +17.2% 2243 -1.2% 3767 2312
6 INGO 1466 +34.6% 1993 +64.9% 3527 1889
7 Arsenal Insurance 1323 +5.3% 1599 +42.3 2383 1602
8 Universalna 1212 +48.3% 1463 +54.7% 2062 1121
9 PZU Ukraine 1109 +33.1% 1314 +42% 2065 1394
10 Oranta 927.8 +16.2% 1100 +29.6 1535 980.3
11 Guardian 844.5 +57.2% 1010 +60.5% 996.3 699.3
12 Knyazha VIG 825.5 +40.7% 1464 +68.9% 1758 1382
13 Premier Garant Profi 620.4 +26.9 617.5 +25.6% 180.2 19.7
14 Persha 487.4 +59.3% 599.4 +47.7% 926.9 639.9
15 Express Insurance 468.5 +12.5% 511.1 +68.5% 715 360.1
16 Colonnade Ukraine 355.1 +39% 450.2 65.4% 863 337.7
17 Euroins Ukraine 321.3 +9.3% 408 +22.1 1059 647.5
18 Alfa Garant 298.3 +24.2% 330.9 +37.6% 348.3 294
19 Oberig 293 +47.8% 275.1 +30.7% 278.3 186.8
20 UPSC 282.4 -63.9% 359.7 +0.2% 690.1 267
