The Banking Sector in Ukraine: Crisis – Recovery – Challenges Ahead

This annual product highlights the main developments in the sector, assesses its recent performance and identifies the main challenges for the future.

Speakers:

• Robert Kirchner, Deputy Team Leader German Advisory Group
• Vitaliy Kravchuk, Senior Research Fellow, Institute of Economic Research and Policy Consulting (IER Kyiv)

Ukraine’s banking sector landscape has changed dramatically over the last few years. Enormous efforts were done by the regulator, the National Bank of Ukraine, to clean-up the banking sector, which has been plagued for many years by related-party lending, intransparent business models and ownership structures, as well as other problems. This new and tough approach by the authorities resulted in the removal of more than half of the institutions from the market over the last few years, while the country’s biggest bank, PrivatBank, was nationalised at the end of last year. These developments took place in close cooperation with the IMF and other international financial institutions, which committed significant resources and expertise to this transformation process. Banking sector reform is seen by many domestic and external stakeholders as a major progress in Ukraine’s vast reform agenda. 

During the event, the new “Banking Sector Monitoring Ukraine” will be presented, which looks at the sector in more detail. This annual product of the German Advisory Group, in cooperation with the IER Kyiv, was introduced last year for the first time. It highlights the main developments in the sector, assesses its recent performance and identifies the main challenges for the future. After the presentation, there will be time for Q&A with the presenters.