Governor of the National Bank of Ukraine Valeria Gontareva has held a meeting with recently elected members of the Council of the Independent Association of the Banks of Ukraine. The meeting, which took place at the National Bank of Ukraine, was attended by First Deputy Governor Oleksandr Pysaruk, Deputy Governors Vladyslav Rashkovan, Dmytro Sologub and Oleh Churii.
Valeria Gontareva welcomed the election of a new composition of the NABU Council.
“We are delighted to continue cooperation with a revamped NABU Council. We have laid a solid foundation for cooperation to be promoted. We would like the National Bank of Ukraine and the NABU remain committed to maintaining a highly professional and constructive dialogue,” said the Governor of Ukraine’s central bank.
According to First Deputy Governor Oleksandr Pysaruk, the NABU has high potential to consolidate the banking community. He pointed out that it is crucial to work out a common vision within the Association itself.
For his part, Roman Shpek, Chairman of the NABU Council thanked the senior management team of the National Bank for their readiness for constructive dialogue and underlined that the Independent Association of the Banks of Ukraine had drastically reshuffled its Council to enable all the bank groups, as ranked by asset size, to have representation on the revamped Council. According to him, the newly elected Council members enjoy trust among the banking community. He also pointed out that the National Bank can count on the NABU to provide objective advice in addressing topical financial sector issues.
Roman Shpek also pointed out that the NABU is the only association that holds meetings annually and revamps the composition of its Council.
“We have trust in the NBU management team and are ready for cooperation and concerted action. However, in our view, fresh draft resolutions should undergo preliminary review so that less time is wasted on discussions and follow-up revisions on feedback. Thus, for instance, a draft resolution on Ukrainian banks’ measuring the credit risk arising from banks’ asset operations needs to undergo a substantial revision as the previous stress test conducted on banks turned out to be an easy task for most banks, which cannot be said about the requirements set forth in this Resolution. Ways to cut operating expenses through reductions in paperwork burdens and many other issues should be addressed in detail. Going forward, we hope to maintain a constructive dialogue with the regulator. As before, the NABU stands ready to provide the NBU and market participants with an objective and expert opinion on changes to the legislation and NBU draft regulations,” underlined Roman Shpek.
In addition, Deputy Governor Vladyslav Rashkovan highlighted the important role that the NABU plays in the banking market.
“We urge the NABU to join more projects implemented as part of the Comprehensive Program for the Development of Ukraine’s Financial Sector till 2020. This Association has great expert potential for this,” said Vladyslav Rashkovan. We would like the Association to become a platform for cooperation between banks and lay a solid foundation to further enhance the efficiency of the banking system.
The bankers also discussed foreign exchange liberalization, financial monitoring, the establishment of the Credit Registry and a shift to IFRS.
In the course of the meeting, the participants agreed to expand the NBU’s Working Group on foreign exchange regulation to include Serhii Manokha, Chairman of the NABU Committee on Monetary Policy and Foreign Exchange Regulation and a member of the NABU Council.