PrivatBank, Ukraine’s largest state-owned bank, increased its corporate loan portfolio by UAH 15.15 billion, or 44.5%, to UAH 49.23 billion in the first nine months of 2025 and plans to continue to grow aggressively and compete in all market segments, said Yevgen Zaigraev, member of the PrivatBank board for corporate business and SMEs.
“We already exceeded our annual plan in September… We are now making plans for the coming years and are also setting fairly aggressive growth rates — higher than the expected market growth rates — because we want to increase our market share in lending,” he said in an interview with Interfax-Ukraine.
According to data from the National Bank of Ukraine, the corporate loan portfolio of the entire banking system of the country grew by 15.1%, or UAH 123.79 billion, to UAH 943.32 billion in the first nine months of this year.
As Zaigraev specified, growth in the microbusiness segment amounted to 18.2%, or UAH 2.57 billion, to UAH 16.71 billion, and in the small business segment, 35.6%, or UAH 3.91 billion, to UAH 14.89 billion.
According to his data, in the medium business segment, over the first nine months of this year, the corporate loan portfolio increased by 44.1%, or UAH 2.26 billion, to UAH 7.38 billion, and in the large corporate business segment, which PrivatBank entered only last year, growth was 2.7 times, or UAH 6.41 billion, to UAH 10.25 billion.
“Growth is higher in large corporate business because the base there was smaller. But in any case, even in micro, small, and medium-sized businesses, we are growing twice as fast as the market today,” commented a member of PrivatBank’s board. According to him, the quality of the loan portfolio is almost perfect thanks to the established risk management procedures: NPL currently stands at approximately 1.5% (excluding the debts of former owners) with a 3-5-fold increase over several years.
He noted that PrivatBank has the capacity to satisfy each of these four segments and will compete in each of them.
“Each of these four segments is an absolute priority for PrivatBank. In each of these segments, we want to grow as much as the market allows,” Zaigraev emphasized.
He recalled that historically, PrivatBank has been more active in the micro and small business segment, so it has a fairly significant market share in these two segments: approximately 40-50% of customers in Ukraine have active accounts with PrivatBank and its services, and about 20% have loans with PrivatBank.
As for the other two segments, according to the board member, after nationalization, the bank began to develop this area only a few years ago, so the share of customers who have active accounts with it is smaller, but it is also quite significant—35-40% of all customers throughout Ukraine.
“However, for the most part, they also had and still have salary projects, acquiring, and foreign currency payments here. We want to provide them with all products and services, and therefore last year we began to actively develop lending and related products for such corporate clients… This means that the potential for growth is greater in the large corporate client segment,” the banker noted.
He recalled that PrivatBank has a total of 930-940 thousand active micro, small, and medium-sized business clients, while its closest competitor has 7-9 times fewer.
Zaigraev clarified that the bank mainly includes sole proprietorships in the microbusiness segment, but also legal entities with annual sales of up to UAH 30 million, small businesses are legal entities with annual sales of UAH 30 million to UAH 300 million, medium or medium corporate businesses are those with annual sales of UAH 300 million to UAH 1.5 billion, and then there are large corporate clients.
According to the NBU, PrivatBank’s total assets reached UAH 1.001 trillion as of September 1, 2025, or 25.6% of the total assets of the Ukrainian banking system.
Ukrainian banks maintain positive expectations regarding the growth of corporate lending, as well as lending to the population over the next 12 months, according to the Survey on Credit Conditions posted on the website of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU). According to the central bank, 76% of the banks surveyed expect an increase in the corporate loan portfolio over the next 12 months, with the corresponding expectations remaining for the sixth consecutive quarter. Some 69% of the polled banks expect the growth of lending to individuals, which is the highest percentage since the beginning of the survey in 2015.
In January-March, banks more actively than a quarter earlier approved applications for loans to small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) and consumer loans, responding to the growth in demand.
“The revival of lending to the population and SMEs in the first quarter was positively influenced by the banks’ lowering interest rates and lengthening the terms of lending,” the NBU reported on the website.
Increased competition between the banks and non-banking institutions, as well as economic growth and a reduction in inflation expectations led to the softening by small banks of requirements for individual borrowers during the first quarter. At the same time, the banks, primarily large ones, raised requirements for collateral on business loans and tightened restrictions imposed by credit agreements, especially for large enterprises. Several large banks also reported an increase in demand for mortgage loans.
