Page 55 - UKRRptSept21

In 2020, the mortgage rates in Ukraine had an average of 18% and many people didn’t even qualify for it, according to Tetyana Markova, director of sales and marketing at Kyivmiskbud, a major construction holding company of Ukraine. But during the first quarter of 2021, banks issued a total of 1,811 mortgage loans that added up to Hr 1.4 billion ($51.4 million), according to the National Bank of Ukraine. Both the number of agreements signed and the monetary value have doubled from the same period last year.
8.1.4 Bank news
Over the next three years, PrivatBank, Ukraine’s largest and most profitable bank, plans to cut its branches by 14%, to 1,250, and its staff by 28%, to 15,500, reports the Finance Ministry, the overseer of the state-owned bank. The goal is to create a ‘good bank’ and a ‘bad bank.’ The ‘good bank,’ largely free of non performing loans from the Kolomoisky era would eventually be privatized. Roman Sulzhuk, a member of the Supervisory Board, writes on Facebook that the main focus of the bank will be to extend credit to small and medium sized businesses.
Kolomoisky and Bogoliubov lost an appeal in US court. On August 23 a Delaware court dismissed a claim by Privatbank’s former owners stop consideration of case filed by the bank in US. Privatbank is suing its former ownership Kolomoisky and Gennadiy Bogoliubov for compensation for damages caused by them to the Bank prior to its nationalization in December 2016.“Privatbank welcomes the decision of the Court to deny the defendants' motion to dismiss the case and expects that the court will set a prompt schedule going forward,” the bank stated.
PrivatBank earned $435mn in net profit during the first half of this year,
making it Ukraine’s most profitable bank, reports the National Bank of Ukraine. The next most profitable banks were: Raiffeisen Bank - $86mn; Sberbank - $79mn; FUIB - $74mn; and Universal Bank - $60mn. H1 net profits for the three other big state banks were: Ukreximbank - $41mn; Ukrgasbank – $27mn; and Oschadbank - $19mn. The most unprofitable bank was Pravex, which lost $3.4mn.
International rating agency Fitch Ratings has upgraded its outlook of Ukraine’s four big state banks -- Oschadbank, PrivatBank, Ukreximbank and Ukrgasbank -- from ‘stable’ to ‘positive.’ The Moscow office of Fitch confirmed at ‘B’ their long-term issuer default ratings in foreign and national currency. Ukraine’s sovereign rating is also ‘B.’
PrivatBank lawyers have added Israel to the list of countries where they are suing the bank’s former owners Igor Kolomoisky and Gennady Bogolyubov. The lawsuit accuses the duo of fraud, misappropriation and money laundering stemming from the transfer of $600mn from PrivatBank in 2007-2011 and deposit into an account at the Israeli bank Discount. PrivatBank is suing Kolomoisky in Israel, Ukraine, the UK, and the US.
55 UKRAINE Country Report September 2021 www.intellinews.com