The NBU will continue to hold interest rate swap auctions in Q2 2021 to facilitate the formation of interest rate risk hedging mechanisms in Ukraine’s financial market.
These auctions are primarily intended to promote the launch of the interest rate swap market as an important prerequisite for the development of long-term lending in Ukraine.
As before, the Q2 2021 auctions will be held twice a month. They will take place every second and fourth Wednesday of the month: one auction for one-to-two-year swaps, and one for three-to-five-year swaps.
More specifically, the first interest rate swap auction scheduled for Q2 2021 will take place on 7 April (two-year swaps), and the second on 21 April (three-year ones). The next auctions will be held on 12 May (one-year swaps), 26 May (four-year ones), 9 June (two-year swaps), and 23 June (five-year ones).
The regulator has also decided not to change the notional principal amount of the interest rate swaps offered at these auctions, setting the limit at UAH 500 million per auction.
Details and results of the auctions will be published on the NBU’s official website.
The NBU started conducting interest rate swap transactions in July of 2020. As of 23 March 2021, the NBU held a total of 11 auctions, making UAH 16.5 billion of deals with banks. That includes about UAH 2.6 billion of two-year swaps, UAH 8 billion of three-year ones, UAH 4 billion of four-year swaps, and UAH 2 billion of five-year ones. Overall, the deals were made with 16 banks.