One third of the Ukrainian public do not keep savings in commercial banks, leading manager for studies at Inmild, Kateryna Zahryvenko, said at a roundtable talk in Kyiv on Thursday while presenting the results of the survey conducted by the company to evaluate the awareness of Ukrainian consumers of the deposit guarantee system which was commissioned by the Individuals' Deposit Guarantee Fund with the support of USAID-funded Financial Sector Development Program.

According to the survey, only 11% of respondents keep most of their savings in banks, 7% - half of their savings and 49% - a small portion of their savings.

The awareness of the public of the guaranteed sum paid to depositors grew from 7% in 2010 to 40% in 2015.

The company said that the primary consideration of an individual when they choose to open a bank account is the reputation of the bank with 75%, however attention is also paid to the bank agreement: 60% of respondents read it attentively. Only 29% of respondents take interest rates on deposits into account when choosing a bank.

Deputy Managing Director of the Individuals' Deposit Guarantee Fund Andriy Olenchyk said that at present, a comprehensive long-term strategy for financial education and increasing financial awareness is being drawn up.

Member of the OTP Bank board Volodymyr Mudry said that the program to increase financial awareness should have clear criteria of the reputation of banks.

"Ukraine has unclear criteria for the reputation of banks – credit ratings do not have clear information, there are many rating agencies, and this is the main aspect depositors use to choose their banks. We need to attract the NBU [National Bank of Ukraine] to the discussion. The conclusion of the survey is criteria for reputation of banks, its owners and the policy they conduct," he said.

Deputy Board Chairman of Credit Dnepr Bank Andriy Moiseyenko said at the roundtable talk that over the past year the level of financial culture of Ukrainians has considerably improved.