UKRAINE-CENTRAL-BANK-LOAN-DYNAMICS
Kyiv, May 15 (Interfax-Ukraine) – The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) says it is mulling measures to ease monetary policy amid low inflation in order to boost the issue of loans by the country’s banks.
“We’re not satisfied with the level of credit exposure, i.e. with the growth of credits demonstrated by the banking system today. It’s very low,” said Olena Scherbakova, the director of the NBU’s monetary and credit policy department, in a statement posted on the NBU’s Web site.
According to her, one of the levers of influence on the situation could be the lesser requirements for the formation by banks of their mandatory reserves at a separate account at the NBU, since this anti-crisis measure is losing relevance now.
“Ultimately, our goal is to make [the NBU's] discount rate work, to make it a key rate,” she said.
At the same time, she said, the lending dynamics are under a certain influence of problems in the judiciary and legislative spheres.
She also noted that the surplus of the balance of payments seen since March lets the central bank buy foreign currency on the interbank forex market.
“We’re maintaining balance on the foreign exchange market. We can buy currency – this is what we’re doing – to pay obligations without reducing [forex] reserves,” she said.
As was reported, the overall amount of credit exposure in Ukraine in April expanded by 0.5%, to UAH 794.4 billion (by 0.1% since the beginning of the year).
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16:39:03 EET-2
