REUTERS
The banking sector's profitability will grow next year as well, the official said.
First Deputy Governor of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) Kateryna Rozhkova says the banking regulator forecasts Ukraine's banking system in 2018 may post a record high profit in more than a decade.
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"According to the results of 2018, the [banking] sector will post profit, which, according to our preliminary estimates, may be a record high in more than 10 years," she said at a briefing on December 17.
Rozhkova added that Ukrainian banks received about UAH 15 billion (US$538.8 million) in profit in the 10 months of 2018.
"We predict that the banking sector's profitability will grow next year. First, this is due to the completion of the balance sheets purge – recognizing bad loans, creating reserves, and handling additional capitalization. We don't foresee significant expenditures on the reserves in future," she added.
As UNIAN reported earlier, Ukrainian solvent banks in January-October 2018 received UAH 14.827 billion (US$532.6 million) in profit, which was seven times up from UAH 2.154 billion ($77.4 million) year-over-year (y-o-y).
Ukraine's banking system posted a total of UAH 24.4 billion ($876.4 million) in losses in 2017 due to the significant amount of allocations for the banks' reserves.