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The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) has decided to include TK Credit, a small-sized bank in terms of assets, in the category of insolvent banks, having for the first time withdrawn a bank from the market for the nontransparent structure of its ownership, the regulator reported on its website.
Starting from the middle of 2014 the NBU has repeatedly brought to the attention of the bank that its ownership structure did not meet the transparency requirements, but the financial institution is said to have disregarded the warnings. What is more, the bank did not submit the requested documents and the bank owners did not take necessary measures to bring the bank's structure in line with legislation requirements.
According to NBU estimates, 98.9% of the bank's depositors will be entitled to compensation through the Individual Deposit Guarantee Fund in full, estimated at about UAH 0.6 million.
The NBU said that all Ukrainian banks should have confirmed transparency of their ownership by the end of 2015, facing the risk of being withdrawn from the market.
The NBU also said it intended to complete the process of ensuring transparency of Ukrainian banks' ownership by the end of the first quarter of 2016.
As part of the banking system's purge, which started in 2014, the NBU designated 63 financial institutions as insolvent.
In October last year, 48 banks were designated by the NBU as having non-transparent ownership structures. The regulator obliged those banks to provide documents showing actual owners and affiliated persons as requested by the law becoming effective in March on amendments to certain legislative acts of Ukraine on liability of persons affiliated with banks.
According to the NBU, the disclosure of information about real owners of the Ukrainian banks will enable the Individual Deposit Guarantee Fund and law enforcement agencies to identify defendants under the claims against banks and hold them accountable for forcing the banks into bankruptcy.
Later, the regulator reported that a number of banks had settled the transparency issues and therefore had been excluded from the list of the "non-transparent" banks. According to the NBU's website, the list of such banks that are still in the process of legalizing their ownership structure comprises 30 financial institutions.