Profit of Ukrainian banks in January-November 2018 totaled UAH 20 billion, and this is an 11-fold rise year-over-year, First Deputy Governor of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) Kateryna Rozhkova has said.
“The sector this year will make profit, which can be a record for more than 10 years. And most importantly it is real profit!” she wrote on her Facebook page on Thursday.
According to her, the year is not over yet, so various adjustments are possible, including the expenses on creating reserves, but the growth of interest income by almost 20% and commission income by 25% indicates that the banking sector is gradually but surely recovering.
Rozhkova predicted that in 2019, the sector income will remain high, although high interest rates will put pressure on income of banks.
Ukrainian banks in 2018 would likely to see a record profit in the past 10 years, First Deputy Governor of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) Kateryna Rozhkova said at a press conference in Kyiv. “By the end of 2018, the sector will see profit and, according to our preliminary estimates, this profit could be a record in more than 10 years,” she said, recalling that for the 10 months of this year, banks posted about UAH 15 billion in net profit. According to Rozhkova, the respective result is due to both an increase in operating profit – interest and commission, and a decrease in sending funds to reserves.
“Interest income continues to be the main source of bank profits against the background of a significant decrease in the cost of borrowed funds over the past few years, cleaning up unproductive assets, as well as enhancing lending,” the first deputy governor of the NBU said.
The growth of commission income, she said, is due to the intensification of consumer lending and the development of banking technology.
In turn, Director of the NBU financial stability department Vitaliy Vavryschuk said that banks, which account for more than 40% of the sector’s assets, are currently operating with a return on capital of more than 30%. “This has never happened in the history of the Ukrainian banking sector,” he said. Moreover, the NBU predicts that the profitability of the banking sector will continue to increase next year, primarily due to the completion of work on cleaning up balance sheets and reducing the amounts sent to reserves. Speaking about the risks of the banking system, Rozhkova noted the short term of the resource base. “Due to significant volumes of high-quality and highly liquid assets on the balance sheet of banks, this situation does not cause concern to the regulator, but given the expected increase in lending next year – these discrepancies in terms of assets and liabilities can carry a risk, and therefore will encourage banks to extend the resource base,” she said.
One of the incentives, according to the first deputy governor of the central bank, is the net stable funding ratio (NSFR), which approval is expected to be finalized by the NBU with banking community in the first half of 2019, after which it will be gradually introduced. According to Vavryschuk, the short term of deposits is mainly the result of the crisis that has passed, after which the share of funds in the current account has significantly increased. “Currently, more than 62% of the total funding of banks is liabilities for up to one month. If you look only at the hryvnia segment, this share is about 76%,” he said. Considering the fact that banks over these short liabilities have long-term assets, the NBU notes the systemic importance of equalizing the terms of assets and liabilities.
“Banks should create more incentives [for extending the term of deposits], perhaps through interest rates. Even a minor extension – up to three from one month, will have a significant fundamental effect on the stability of funding of the banking sector,” Vavryschuk said. In addition, Rozhkova noted the continued high level of dollarization of some banks, especially with Ukrainian private capital, among potential risks.
“Our calculations show that with significant shocks, the risks of these banks are increasing, so we continue to strongly recommend banks to reduce the level of dollarization, especially in the active part of the balance,” Rozhkova said.
The first deputy governor of the NBU also said that in 2019, new stress tests of banks would be held. In addition to the standard approach, the National Bank intends to pay special attention to the quality of consumer loans. In addition, the NBU intends to review the regularity of these tests (now they are held annually).
Enterprises and organizations in Ukraine in January-September 2018 raised profit from ordinary activities before taxation by 12.4%, to UAH 208.2 billion, while in January-September 2017 the figure was UAH 237.8 billion, according to the State Statistics Service of Ukraine. According to the service, in January-September 2018 profitable Ukrainian enterprises received UAH 378.218 billion of profit, which is 2.6% more than in the same period in 2017. At the same time, 29.2% of enterprises posted a negative financial result. Their losses in January-September of this year increased by 29.9% compared to January-September last year, to UAH 169.98 billion.
Vodafone Ukraine sees net profit fall by 24.4%
KYIV. Nov 20 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Vodafone Ukraine in July-September 2018 received a net profit of UAH 393 million, which is 24.4% less than the figure for July-September 2017.
According to a press release from the Ukrainian operator, the reduction in net profit is due to the increase in depreciation costs due to the active deployment of 4G and 3G networks.
The company’s revenue for the third quarter increased by 6.5%, to UAH 3.3 billion.
Vodafone Ukraine said OIBDA in the third quarter of this year increased by 49.4% compared to the same period last year, to UAH 1.8 billion, and the OIBDA margin rose by 13.9 percentage points, to 54.9%.
The subscriber base of Vodafone Ukraine in the reporting period decreased by 4.3%, to 19.9 million subscribers.
The company added that at the end of September 2018, the number of 4G users increased by 75.3%, without specifying the absolute figure, while the 4G network covers almost 40% of the country’s population.
According to the press release, investment in the network infrastructure amounted to more than UAH 1 billion for the reporting period and UAH 20 billion since the start of construction of high-speed mobile Internet networks.
The Agroliga Group (Kharkiv region) in January-September 2018 saw a EUR 2.35 million in net profit, which is 2.9% less than a year ago.
According to a company report for January-September 2018, revenue grew by 4.9%, to EUR 15.26 million, gross profit – by 4.7%, to EUR 3.43 million, and operating profit fell by 5.6%, to EUR 2.81 million.
Total assets as of September 30, 2018 came to EUR 33.02 million compared with EUR 25.33 million as of December 31, 2017.
Agroliga has been operating on the Ukrainian agricultural market since 1992. Its enterprises are engaged in growing grain crops, processing sunflower seeds, and dairy farming.
The group cultivates about 10,000 hectares of land.
The majority shareholders of the group are Oleksandr Berdnyk with a share of 41.66%, and Iryna Poplavska with 41.66%.
The largest 25 Ukrainian banks (in terms of net assets) in January-September 2018 received a net profit of UAH 10.9 billion, which is 4.8 times more than in the same period of 2017. The best result was shown by PrivatBank, which received a net profit of UAH 5.093 billion against a net loss of UAH 1.604 billion a year earlier, Raiffeisen Bank Aval, which increased profit by 0.96%, to UAH 4.071 billion, and UkrSibbank, which saw profit rise by 2.2 times, to UAH 1.898 billion.
The loss in the reporting period was received by Sberbank with UAH 6.995 billion, VTB Bank with UAH 1.788 billion, Ukrsotsbank with UAH 839.465 million, and Prominvestbank (PIB) with UAH 108.26 million.
PrivatBank received the highest net interest income before allocations to reserves – UAH 10.717 billion (an increase of 2.63 times), Oschadbank got UAH 3.664 billion (a decrease of 10.34%), and UkrSibbank some UAH 2.771 billion (an increase of 46.77%).
In relative terms, the interest income of Ukrsotsbank rose most of all, by 2.68 times, to UAH 759.934 million.
However, if to consider the assets of the banks, OTP Bank turned out to be the most successful in the reporting period as its net interest margin for the reporting period was 6.62%, followed by Kredobank with 6.24% and FUIB with 6.01%.
