US President Joe Biden, in a conversation with his Ukrainian counterpart Vladimir Zelensky, announced Washington’s plans to provide Ukraine with $500 million in direct financial assistance, according to a White House press release.
“President Biden informed President Zelensky that the United States intends to provide the Ukrainian government with $500 million in direct budget support,” the document says.
The two leaders also discussed how the US is working with allies and partners to identify additional opportunities to provide defense assistance to the Ukrainian military. It was also about how the United States is trying to “satisfy the basic needs of Ukraine in the field of security.”
In addition, Zelensky provided Biden with information on the state of negotiations between Ukraine and Russia, the press release also says.
Oschadbank (Kyiv) plans to reduce the number of branches from 2,400 to 1,800-2,000 next year and update the remaining ones as part of the continued optimization of the network of branches of the financial institution. “We now have 2,400 branches. According to the plan, about 1,800-2,000 should remain. At the same time, we emphasize that all financial services will be available to customers throughout Ukraine,” Apine Baiba, the head of the supervisory board of Oschadbank, said in an interview with FinClub.
According to her, Oschadbank has already begun optimizing the network by updating more than 650 branches. At the same time, according to the old model, about 1,800 branches are still operating.
“Next year we need to make a choice: reformat them to a new business model or reduce them. And we cannot delay this process, because it affects the bank’s performance,” she said.
She clarified that the financial institution’s specialists are also working on transferring services from the branches to an online mode.
Oschadbank was founded in 1991. Its sole owner is the state.
Oschadbank ranked second among 76 banks operating in the country on October 1, 2019 in terms of total assets (UAH 274.609 billion), according to the National Bank of Ukraine.
Ministry of Energy and Environment Protection of Ukraine will develop a new energy strategy of Ukraine, said minister Oleksiy Orzhel. “The energy strategy will be definitely reviewed because we have a strategy, which isn’t fulfilled,” he said at a briefing in Kyiv on Monday.
In particular, the minister noted among the priorities the increase in gas of own production, as the existing potential is not used enough. According to him, the gas production level in Ukraine corresponds to 1.2% of reserves, while the global trend in the world is 4%-5%.
“There will be legislative initiatives to increase gas production. There will be reforms on the market, we invite everyone to invest,” Orzhel said.
He added that the issue of such investments has been discussed with American partners at the negotiations in Poland that took place on the weekend.
Besides, the minister reminded that Ukraine has recently launched open licensing competitions.
