The banking system of Ukraine will close the year 2013 with profit, but if the protest attitudes in the society remain and the political confrontation strengthens, beginning from the first quarter of the next year banks will start incurring losses, say bankers interviewed by Interfax-Ukraine agency.

From January 1, according to the Resolution of the NBU No 59, banks will increase their provisions for distressed assets, this is why the profit of banks for the current year will be less than the year before, bankers say.

However, the Chairman of the Management Board of FUIB Sergey Chernenko considers that the profit of banks in the current year will be larger than last year.

“We expect that the profit for 2013 will be higher than in 2012. It is possible that the growth will be as high as 5-10%, but not higher, judging from the overall economic situation in the country during this year. We see that the majority of banks in the system demonstrate the profit. At the same time, a number of banks have formed significant losses. But, viewing the system as the whole, its efficiency has increased,” the banker says.

According to the banker, the efficiency of the banking system has been positively impacted by the retail portfolio, declining in previous years, which this year has showed growth thanks to high demand for consumer loans. In addition, the efficiency of managing the cost of the deposit base grew: last year the high volatility of deposit rates was observed, this year until December the deposit rates have been going down. Banks are also learning to work with the operating expenses, the banker notes.

As reported earlier, according to the NBU, throughout January-November 2013 the net profit of banks amounted to UAH 2,401 billion.

The banking system of Ukraine in 2012 earned the profit of UAH 4.899 bn, whereas in 2011 the losses of the banking system totalled UAH 7.7 bn.

Source: bin.ua