State-owned Ukreximbank (Kyiv) has issued UAH 1 billion in loans under the Affordable Loans 5-7-9% program since the start of the program, the bank’s press service said on Wednesday.
“Almost every second loan under the program is aimed at capital investments in expanding the existing business, as well as supporting promising start-ups,” the press service said, citing Head of department of medium business and municipalities Semen Puskai.
It is indicated that half of the total amount of funds under the program are anti-crisis loans at 0% to ensure financing of the working capital of enterprises.
The bank added that refinancing of previously received loans at a reduced interest rate is actively used to reduce the debt burden on business.
The Motor (Transport) Insurance Bureau of Ukraine (MTIBU) as of October 1, 2020 placed 72.6% of the hryvnia funds of the centralized insurance reserve fund for protection of road accident victims at four state banks.
According to a report on the MTIBU’s website, there are UAH 324.3 million on deposits in Ukreximbank, UAH 147 million in Oschadbank, UAH 267 million in Ukrgasbank, and UAH 24.750 million in PrivatBank.
In addition, Kredobank has UAH 94.2 million on deposits, Credit Agricole Bank some UAH 9.120 million, OTP Bank some UAH 42.9 million, TAScombank some UAH 95.794 million, FUIB some UAH 5.3 million, Alfa-Bank some UAH 7.6 million, and Pravex Bank some UAH 33.7 million.
In addition, as of September 30, 2020, the money of the centralized insurance reserve fund for protection of road accident victims in hryvnia-denominated government domestic loan bonds amounted to UAH 559.3 million and foreign currency government bonds some $ 107.087 million.
Ukrainian banks in July-September 2020 closed 251 structural divisions, as of October 1 their regional network consisted of 7,329 branches.
According to data posted on the website of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU), in the third quarter, Oschadbank ceased the operation of 166 branches (reducing their number to 1,931), PrivatBank some 83 (to 1,750), TAScombank 11 (to 87), Kredobank five (to 83).
In addition, Ukrbudinvestbank (to 47) and UkrSibbank (to 278) closed four branches in the last quarter, the regulator noted.
It is also indicated that in July-September this year, state-owned Ukrgasbank opened 21 offices, expanding its regional network to 269 branches, A-Bank opened five branches (to 235) and Megabank (to 153) and IBOX Bank (to 42) opened three branches each.
According to the National Bank, as of October 1 Oschadbank remains the leader in terms of the number of branches (1,931), PrivatBank ranks second (to 1,750), Raiffeisen Bank Aval ranks third (456), UkrSibbank is in the fourth place (278) and Ukrgasbank is fifth (269).
State-controlled PrivatBank in January-May continued to top the list of the most profitable Ukrainian banks, declaring UAH 19.62 billion of net profit, while state-owned Ukreximbank recorded the largest loss, as a month earlier, of UAH 1.59 billion.According to the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU), Oschadbank (UAH 3.56 billion) ranked second in the list of the most profitable banks, Raiffeisen Bank Aval (UAH 1.7 billion) ranked third. FUIB is in the fourth position (UAH 1.13 billion), and Citibank (UAH 759.66 million) is fifth.
According to the central bank, in January-May 2020, Bank Credit Dnipro ranked second (UAH 245.89 million) in terms of losses, Prominvestbank (PIB, UAH 126 million) ranked third, Pravex-Bank (UAH 63.72 million) ranked fourth and BTA Bank (UAH 39.38 million) was fifth.
In general, in the five months of 2020, the net profit of banks increased by 23.6%, to UAH 28.96 billion from the corresponding figure a year earlier (UAH 23.43 billion).
Some 59 of 75 banks operating in Ukraine were profitable during this period, according to NBU data.
According to the statistics of the National Bank, in terms of total assets, PrivatBank (UAH 590.59 billion) ranked first for the indicated period, Oschadbank (UAH 310.78 billion) ranked second, Ukreximbank (UAH 220.71 billion) ranked third, Ukrgasbank (UAH 156.43 billion) ranked fourth, while Raiffeisen Bank Aval (UAH 100.9 billion) ranked fifth.
The COVID-19 pandemic pushes for cash to go to “normal Fintech,” in particular, the development of digital currencies of central banks, Economist and Professor at the Institute of Sciences Po Sergei Guriev has said. “The future is in the digital currencies of central banks. Central banks will gradually move away from cash, you will have Fintech in hryvnias… Everyone will have an account with the central bank,” he said during a public interview organized by the Kyiv School of Economics.
Guriev added that this trend is a challenge for commercial banks.
“You will have an electronic hryvnia. You will no longer have the cash hryvnia,” he said.
Previously, central banks argued that cash should be avoided by the need to combat the shadow economy, but in the current conditions, the pandemic pushes to it.
“Now it’s clear that this pandemic is not the last. And cash is a source of infection. Therefore, the transition to digital payments will accelerate. But it will not be bitcoin, it will be a normal Fintech,” the economist said.
The total number of transactions (noncash and cash) using payment cards issued by Ukrainian banks amounted to 1.385 billion units, and their amount was UAH 920.5 billion in January-March 2020, which is 24.5% and 15.6%, respectively, more than in the same period of 2019, according to the data of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU), released on its website on Thursday, May 21.
According to the data, noncash transactions prevailed in both quantity and amount, for example, Ukrainians carried out 1.183 billion noncash transactions (85.4% of the total) for a total of UAH 503 billion (54.6% of the total).
The regulator said that in the first quarter, the largest number of transactions using cards accounted for settlements in retail chains, namely 50.3%, however, person-to-person transfers prevailed by the amount of 41.3%, the average size of which was UAH 1,505.
The NBU said that the total number of issued payment cards in Ukraine as of April 1, 2020 reached 68.6 million. However, in March all expenditure transactions were carried out using 53.4% of all payment cards, in February with use of 53%, in January with use of 53.2% payment cards.
The regulator said that from January, banks began to report to the NBU monthly, whereas earlier they did it on a quarterly basis, and therefore, active payment cards were also calculated every month, however, comparison with last years’ indicators became impossible.
According to the NBU, a third, or 11.3 million of payment cards that were used for expenses in March were either contactless or tokenized.
Thus, in March 8.9 million contactless payment cards and almost 2.5 million tokenized ones were used for transactions, which is 16% and 11.2% more than in January 2020.
The regulator said that nine out of ten (90.2%) of trading POS terminals provide contactless payment, whereas eight out of ten were contactless in 2019. When compared with the beginning of 2020, there is a 0.7% decrease in the number of working trading POS terminals due to lockdown restrictions introduced in March.
According to the NBU, the number of payment terminals in the trading network per one million of permanent residents as of April 1, 2020 amounted to 8,300.
“The regional distribution of the terminal network in Ukraine is quite irregular. The smallest number of payment devices per an inhabitant is observed in the west of the country and in Luhansk and Donetsk regions,” the regulator said, adding that Kyiv city and Kyiv, Dnipropetrovsk and Kharkiv regions prevail in the number of payment cards and payment devices.
Thus, as of April 1, 2020, some 70 participants of card payment systems were registered in Ukraine.
