The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) has announced its plan to strengthen the country’s defence capability through the active involvement of the banking system. At the meeting of the NBU Board with the heads of 30 largest banks, three main areas of cooperation were discussed, reports Komersant ukrainskyi
citing the NBU press service.
GOVERNMENT BONDS
The first area is budget financing through domestic government bonds (T-bills). The NBU considers it to be the most realistic source of covering the budget deficit. According to NBU Governor Andriy Pyshnyi, the bank will actively work on the domestic borrowing market and expects to raise UAH 220 billion in net financing by the end of the year. Mr Pyshnyi stressed that the banking system has the potential to do so.
This potential seems to lie in the fact that the government bonds should be redeemed primarily by banks: First Deputy Governor of the NBU Kateryna Rozhkova urged them to “take this into account in their investment plans by the end of the year”.
“It is not about a rollover, but about additional plans, net borrowings to finance the budget needs,” Rozhkova said,
– Rozhkova clarified.
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Lending to the energy sector
The second area is energy lending.
“Over the past three months, banks have approved business applications for lending to energy infrastructure restoration projects for UAH 5.8 billion. In total, applications for UAH 46 billion have been received since the beginning of June,”
– pyshnyi said.
According to the NBU, the amount of financing already provided by banks is UAH 972 million, the total financed capacity under the loans to businesses is 97 mW, and the geography is 21 regions.
Fighting against drops
The third area is the fight against illegal schemes. As reported
“Our position is that the market should not be overregulated. But in a situation where the budget is losing billions in taxes due to illegal schemes, such steps are necessary,”
– said the NBU Governor.
Dmytro Oliynyk, Deputy Governor of the NBU, suggested specific steps:
“We advise banks to agree at the association level that the main benchmark for applying the limits should be the confirmed level of income of customers indicated in the questionnaire. And that the limits should be set simultaneously across the market to avoid customers switching from one bank to another.”
He added that over the next month, the NBU will start creating a register of compromised cards, followed by a register of “unreliable” merchants.
As reported