Page 47 - UKRRptMar19

8.0 Financial & capital markets 8.1 Bank sector overview
One quarter of Ukraine’s 77 banks – 20 small and medium entities – are ‘unviable’, reports the National Bank of Ukraine. After a study of the market’s 40 small and medium banks, Ekateryna Rozhkova, the the bank’s First Deputy Governor, reports: “The main problem for small banks is the lack of a development strategy and, as a result, the unviability of the business model. Another important issue is the source of funds to support the bank’s capital.” After the 2014 financial crisis, the central bank closed half of Ukraine’s banks.
Ukrainian banking sector reported UAH21.7bn (around $80mn) of net profit in 2018 following a net loss of UAH26.5bn a year ago, the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) said in a statement published on February 7.
The country's banking system has return to profitability for the first time since 2013. Ukraine's central bank has transformed the entire banking sector of Ukraine after years of massive fraud over the past three years. The NBU has withdrawn the licences of around 100 lenders, many of them due to their involvement in money laundering, stealing depositors’ money or for having a non-transparent ownership structure.
According to the NBU's first deputy governor Kateryna Rozhkova, the intensification of lending has added to the 2018 result, primarily retail in national currency, which increased by more than 30%.
At the time, the decline in interest rates on deposits of individuals during most
47 UKRAINE Country Report March 2019 www.intellinews.com