Oleksandr Dubilet, who had headed PrivatBank (Dnipro) for a long time prior to the decision on its nationalization, has said the National Bank of Ukraine's (NBU) statement on 97% of insider loans in PrivatBank's portfolio of corporate loans is exaggerated.

At the same time, NBU First Deputy Chairman Yakiv Smoliy said the share of loans to related parties in PrivatBank exceeds 90%.

At the same time, he stressed this cannot be classified as withdrawal of funds from Ukraine.

"To think that this is capital withdrawn abroad to offshores? No, I would not say so, because most of the loans were issued to the companies operating in Ukraine. It's another matter that there should be appropriate collaterals and reserves for this category," the official explained.

According to Dubilet, the main problem of the bank's and the NBU's credit evaluation is a new accounting procedure for credit risks: according to NBU regulations, which come into force on January 1, 2017, not all types of mortgages that were taken earlier as a pledge are recorded as such.