The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) is considering the possibility of conducting new stress tests at Ukrainian banks to determine the level of their potential financial stability in unfavorable conditions, the director of the chief banking supervision department at the NBU, Oleksiy Tkachenko, has said.
"The opportunities of carrying out additional stress tests are being considered. This is under discussion now," he told Interfax-Ukraine on Tuesday.
The official said that the state of systemic banks of the country was no cause for alarm.
"At present, everything concerning the systemic banks is normal and stable," he said.
The total net loss of unprofitable banks came to Hr 10.175 billion: Hr 6.152 billion or 60.47% of the sum was losses made by banks in the group of the largest banks. In January-September 2010 four out of 17 largest financial institutions saw losses: UkrSibbank (BNP Paribas Group, Hr 1.395 billion), state-run Ukrgasbank (Hr 3.6 billion), Kreditprombank (Hr 728 million) and Forum Bank (Commerzbank Group, Hr 430 million). The equity capital of almost the half of the financial institutions from the group was lower than their charter capital.
Tkachenko also said that banks are working on boosting regulatory capital, which under an NBU decision is to be no less than Hr 120 million as of January 1, 2012.
"All banks [with regulatory capital lower than Hr 120 million) have capitalization programs that foresee reaching Hr 120 million by late 2011. The other question is whether we will manage to achieve this… Not only the banks, but also the owners of the banks have approved [the relevant programs]," he said.
According to the Association of Ukrainian Banks, as of July1, 2011, a total of 29 Ukrainian banks had regulatory capital lower than Hr 120 million.
Representatives of the association earlier said that the administrative increase of requirements on the absolute size of regulatory capital for small financial institutions is leading to their being pushed out of the market using non-market methods.
Tkachenko also said that Bank Kyiv and Ukrgasbank, which the state bought out during the financial crisis, do not need additional capital injections.
"They [Bank Kyiv and Ukrgasbank] are well enough capitalized. The banks are operating in normal regimes," he said.
In addition, the official refuted forecasts circulating on the market regarding the coming withdrawal of some banks with foreign capital from Ukraine.
"No banks with foreign capital are planning to close their businesses in Ukraine. The only thing that there is some reformatting, as at SEB and Swedbank: this doesn’t just concern Ukraine – they’re closing retail [bank businesses] all over Europe, apart from in Sweden," he said.
In September Swedbank Group said it had decided to leave the retail segment of the Ukrainian market and focus exclusively on corporate clients. A similar decision was made by SEB in November.
In addition, in November Commerzbank, which is represented in Ukraine by Forum Bank, announced plans to reduce its presence in non-key markets outside Germany.
