Zelensky's office plans large-scale privatization of state banks

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's plans a large-scale privatization of state-owned banks to invite large foreign banking groups to Ukraine.

"The banks should be sold first," Deputy Head of the Presidential Office Oleksiy Honcharuk told Bloomberg. "I want 10 big systemic banks to enter Ukraine."

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For this, Ukraine needs to demonstrate economic growth, the independence of the national regulator – the central bank – and to fix the court system, he said.

UNIAN memo. Under the government-approved strategy of reforming the state banking sector in 2015, the Finance Ministry announced a phased withdrawal from the capital of state-owned banks. The privatization of the two largest banks, Oschadbank and Ukreximbank, was to start in the middle of 2018, with the government planning to sell 20% of these banks. As part of the strategy, the government planned to partially or fully withdraw from Ukrgasbank's capital by the end of 2017.

In the updated strategy of reforming state banks, which was published in 2018, the Finance Ministry set the task that by 2022 the state's share in the banking sector should decrease from 55% to 24%.