Kyiv, April 11 (Interfax-Ukraine) – The self-regulatory organization (SRO) Association of Professional Bank Estimates Ukraine has asked the State Property Fund of Ukraine (SPF) to create public registers of appraisals for court enforcement proceedings and facilities for privatization, which will allow making the appraisal market more transparent.

"If the appraisal market is not made more transparent, open and understandable, the market could face troublesome times as citizens, investors and banks will not trust it. The present top managers of the SPF did a thing that no one could do before: they formed a database of reports on appraisals for taxation. Today appraisers go and ask the SPF to expand the list of appraisals, for example, for facilities that are subject to privatization, as each of us to some extent is the owner of these facilities," President of the Association of Professional Bank Estimates Ukraine Serhiy Frolov said at a press conference at Interfax-Ukraine on April 10.

He said that if the appraisals for privatization become public, there would be fewer reasons for abuses of office in the privatization segment.

"Why can we know the appraised value of Ukrtelecom from articles by journalists, and not know the appraised value of plants in the regions?" he said.

Frolov said that the appraisal of enforcement proceedings is not always conducted in a fair way.

"The SRO jointly with the SPF, later the Justice Ministry will be involved, are working on putting appraisals for enforcement proceedings into such register," Frolov said.

Research Fellow of the Academy of Financial Management under Ukraine's Finance Ministry, PhD in Technical Sciences Ihor Voloshyn said that the non-transparency of the appraising market brings risks for the banking system.

"It's important for banks to exclude the re-appraisal of property used as collateral and have the right assessment of credit risks. The underestimation of property used as collateral will result in the under-crediting of the economy, business and the public by the banks," the expert said.

He said that an appraisal of property used as collateral should be conducted, taking into account geography specifics of the facilities. The time element should be also taken into account, the price of property used as collateral is moving in cycles.

"The issues require that banks have access to the assessment risks, which will allow the crediting of the economy to expand," Voloshyn said.

Assistant Professor in Banking, Managing Partner of the Credo-Ukraine international investment company, PhD in Economics Ruslan Hrytsenko, said that the transparency of the appraisal market could guarantee the creation of a public council at the SPF to ensure control, transparent rules for entering the market and rules of operation on the market.

"It would be wonderful to understand who stands behind the appraising company, and if there is a conflict of interests between the appraiser and the facilities under appraisal. In addition, companies should be deprived of the right to operate on the market if they make mistakes and fail to observe the rules," Hrytsenko said.