Kateryna Rozhkova leaves her post as first deputy governor of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU), to be replaced by Sergiy Nikolaychuk.
The first deputy governor is responsible for the financial stability of Ukraine’s banking system, which means Nikolaychuk will take over these responsibilities in office.
Nikolaychuk was previously responsible for monetary policy – a set of tools for the central bank to control overall money supply, changing interest rates in the banking system, and influencing the bank’s reserve requirements and open market operation.
In a press release on Friday, the NBU reported that Nikolaychuk was appointed as Rozhkova’s successor at a Council meeting on Aug.15.
Rozhkova’s contract with the NBU expired, and now the NBU will look for a new candidate to lead monetary policy after Nikolaychuk switches to the financial stability vertical. He will still lead monetary policy “temporarily”, the NBU wrote in its press release.
“The Board of the National Bank is solving extremely complex tasks in unprecedented conditions. And the fact that the financial system is working round the clock during a full-scale war is an undeniable result of the daily hard work of our entire team,” the press release quoted NBU governor Andriy Pyshny as saying.
The Board of the NBU, according to the law “On the National Bank of Ukraine” consists of seven people: the governor, the first deputy governor, and five deputy governors.
Who is Kateryna Rozhkova?
Rozhkova started working for the NBU Board from January 2016, participating in the historical transformation of Ukraine’s banking system.
As first deputy governor, she has been responsible for the work of the Financial Stability Unit over the past 2.5 years, the NBU wrote in its press release.
“Together with her team, Kateryna Rozhkova participated in the recovery of the banking system in 2015–2017, the transformation of the non-banking financial sector, strategic projects on the implementation of EU norms in the regulation of the financial sector of Ukraine, etc,” the NBU wrote.
This includes the cleaning of Ukraine’s banking system after failing to impose the NBU’s updated capital requirements. Between 2014 and 2017, the NBU declared 84 banks as insolvent, while an additional 35 were declared insolvent between 2017 and 2025, according to minfin statistics.
The cleanup – the so-called “bankopad” in Ukrainian – wiped out Ukraine’s largest retail and business banks such as Delta Bank, Finansy i Kredit, Nadra Bank, Bank Mykhailovskiy and even the bank Rozhkova once led, Platinum Bank.
Rozhkova worked for the NBU’s board during the nationalization of Ukraine’s largest bank, PrivatBank, as it was passed from Ukraine’s oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky. During this time, a criminal case was underway against her, as well as multiple staff members who had worked on the investigation and 2016 nationalization of PrivatBank.
The nationalization took place because the bank’s regulatory capital reached negative levels. A $5.5 billion fraud, resulting in a significant loss of funds, was detected according to investigations by Kroll.
Rozhkova and then-deputy governor Dmytro Sologub also experienced tensions with the NBU Council and the 2019-2022 NBU governor Kyrylo Shevchenko.
The NBU Council issued reprimands and statements of no confidence in Rozhkova and Sologub for talking to the media. This included a 45-minute interview with Kyiv Post about the NBU’s independence and Sologub’s comments to Interfax-Ukraine, Kyiv Post wrote back in 2021. The criticism went to court and Sologub and Rozhkova scored a legal victory against the central bank’s advisory council.
Who is Sergiy Nikolaychuk?
Nikolaychuk worked at the NBU from 2009 to 2019, where he made a career progressing from economist to director of the Monetary Policy and Economic Analysis Department, according to the NBU.
His career included a period working for the ICU and the Ministry of Economic Development, Trade and Agriculture of Ukraine from September 2019 to July 2021, after which he returned to the position of deputy governor of the NBU, curator of the monetary stability block.
Nikolaychuk is an honorary professor of practice at the Kyiv School of Economics, as well as a lecturer at the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv. Shevchenko University is also his alma mater as he graduated from the institution in 2004 with a master’s degree in economics, earning a PhD there in 2008 for the work “Modeling the Transmission Mechanism of Monetary Policy in Ukraine.”
In his interview with Kyiv Post in February 2025, Nikolaychuk said that Ukraine’s economy cannot sharply transition from a war-time mode to sudden recovery, no matter how quickly the peace negotiations develop or what demands are levied on Ukraine by foreign partners or adversaries.
The impact of the end of the war on Ukraine’s economic activity will take time and require a robust security agreement with allies to give investors confidence in Ukraine’s long-term economic stability and potential for growth.
“Security risks and their reduction will also be gradual: there won’t be an immediate switch from one mode to another,” Nikolaychuk said. “We don’t believe there will be a specific ‘Day X’ that will completely change the situation. In our view, this process will be rather gradual, impacting macro-financial stability and the return to normal. The reduction of security risks will also be gradual – both in the lead-up to this ‘Day X’ and after it.”