PrivatBank assesses its losses due to the annexation of Crimea at $9 billion, Deputy Board Chairperson Halyna Pakhachuk has said in an interview with NV.Business exine published on June 7.
“The lawsuit was filed for the amount of over $1 billion [in the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague regarding assets in Crimea]. But, if you assess the losses as a whole, I think that the bank lost more than $9 billion. This is the currency position, these are loans,” Pakhachuk said.
She recalled that the bank had already won the main court case in the arbitration court against Russia: in February 2019, an interim award was issued, and the process came to completion and assessment of the economic losses that were inflicted by Russia.
Among other problems, Pakhachuk called the debt of companies, probably controlled by the former owners of banks, reached Hr 240 billion in hryvnia equivalent, of which Hr 212 billion was confirmed by an audit report.
Commenting on the impact of recent court decisions taken in favor of ex-owners of the bank, Pakhachuk said that “this news background had a certain impact in April and May.”
Pakhachuk also said that the supervisory board of PrivatBank has almost doubled the internal liquidity standards compared to the required NBU.
According to her, now there are more funds in the cash account of the bank than in the State Treasury. “According to the general reserve requirements for the bank, on its correspondent account there should be Hr 10-12 billion, plus Hr 12 billion in cash desks, ATMs and storage. Hr 24 billion is cash that secures payments to our customers,” Pakhachuk said.
