The Council of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) has assessed the loss of the country's economy from the 2014-2016 banking crisis at 38% of GDP.

"Direct fiscal expenditure of Ukraine to overcome the consequences of the banking sector crisis have reached 14% of GDP, which exceeds relevant expenditure during the 2008-2009 financial and economic crisis, while total loss of the economy from the crisis now is 38% of GDP," the Council said in a report posted on the website of the central bank.

In terms of fiscal expenditures, almost 5% of GDP was spent by the state on replenishment of PrivatBank's capital. These costs will increase to 7% of GDP after the government's decision to capitalize the bank by UAH 38.5 billion. Another 2.4% of GDP was spent on the recapitalization of Oschadbank and Ukreximbank in 2014 and 2016-2017. In addition, 4.4% of GDP was injected to the Individuals' Deposit Guarantee Fund, which compensated depositors of insolvent banks for their losses within the guaranteed amount. Another 2.5% of GDP was spent on refinancing of banks that were declared insolvent in 2008-2009 and in 2014.

As for the losses of the economy, the council indicates that they consist of deposits in insolvent banks that exceed the guaranteed amount. The total amount of these funds is 16% of GDP of the respective years. In addition, the owners of operating banks suffered losses due to the need to capitalize banks, as well as the owners of insolvent banks.

The NBU Council said that the central bank's "cleaning" of the banking system took place without announcing a clear program for reforming the banking sector.

"This caused significant uncertainty in the activities of the banking and real economic sectors, as well as with the population," the document said.

The decisions of the NBU to remove solvent banks from the market were also insufficiently proved. In particular, there were signs of applying different approaches to cleaning up the banking system.