Page 45 - UKRRptSept20

8.0​ Financial & capital markets 8.1​ Bank sector overview
The banking sector made back a little ground lost in June when the sector as a whole lost UAH5171mn to be back in profit in July, earning UAH4,599mn.
As the chart below shows the sector had been off to a good start this year and cumulative profits were ahead of 2019, the first year of strong sector profit growth since Euromaidan. But the crisis knocked profits back to behind those of 2019, but still ahead of the previous two years.
On a month on month basis profits in the sector have recovered back into the black but were still behind those of a year earlier.
Lending to both corporates and retail customers has been rather stagnant ​in the summer months. And there has been little change to the NPL results, despite a slight tick up in the crisis months of the second quarter.
The 5-7-9% lending program has extended $120mn in loans to 1,755 small businesses​, Yulia Kovaliv, Deputy Presidential Chief of Staff, said on August 3. With the $68,400 the average loan size, 62% have gone to farms and 14% to the processing industry. Eighteen banks are now participating. The three possible rates - 5%, 7% or 9% - depends on the size of the business, number of employee and length of the loan.
Prime Minister Denis Shmygal pledges $328mn more for Ukraine’s “5-7-9% affordable loan program” to prop up small businesses, ​the head of government announced on Facebook.
He writes: “Small business owners need affordable resources to support their own business during the crisis. At the same time, there are new opportunities, so UAH1bn was spent on investment needs. We expect that this year we will have 7, 9 and even more billion hryvnias issued in the form of affordable loans for Ukrainian entrepreneurs.”
45​ UKRAINE Country Report​ September 2020 ​ ​www.intellinews.com