The Ukrainian Finance Ministry hopes to complete the work on a strategy for the development of state-owned banks by mid-October, First Deputy Finance Minister Oksana Markarova has told Interfax-Ukraine.

"The strategy on state banks is at the final stage... We will be ready to present it at a government meeting by the middle of October," she said on the sidelines of the Fourth Kyiv International Economic Forum on Thursday.

According to Markarova, the ministry has recently worked actively on resolving the issue of problem loans of state banks.

"We had a number of discussions, including with experts and the public. We are now entering the final model. Without solving this issue, it is very difficult to choose a direction, especially for those banks that have some focus," she said.

She also announced the completion of work on options for PrivatBank's development strategy.

"The strategy is also at the final stage. We use part of it to update the overall strategy. I do not want to say a specific day, but it's a matter of weeks," Markarova said.

As reported, in July this year, the supervisory board of PrivatBank (Kyiv) announced McKinsey & Company the winner of a tender to select an internationally recognized company responsible for drawing up a strategy of the financial institution.

PrivatBank said that the objective of this assignment is to design a market strategy to optimize PrivatBank operations while ensuring the best interest of its shareholder and financial stability and to perform a diagnostic of the Bank and assess its ability to rebuild a strong, sustainable business model, and to generate strategic options for its further evolution.

As reported, on December 18, 2016, Deputy Governor of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) Kateryna Rozhkova said that McKinsey & Company would offer options for the strategy of nationalized PrivatBank to the Finance Ministry and NBU at the end of September or early October.