Ukraine's banking associations hope to efficiently cooperate with new NBU leadership
Kyiv, December 23 (Interfax-Ukraine) – The Association of Ukrainian Banks (AUB) and the Ukrainian Credit-Banking Union (UCBU) have expressed hope that the associations would efficiently cooperate with new leadership of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU), the associations' heads said at a press conference at Interfax-Ukraine on Wednesday.
"We hope that a dialogue with the new NBU leadership would be established… We have hopes for better," UCBU Director General Halyna Olifer said.
She said that the public should have a chance to take part in drawing up amendments to the regulatory laws on the financial market, while the NBU recently considerably narrowed the said consultations.
AUB President Oleksandr Suhoniako said that Serhiy Azbuzov, who was appointed NBU governor on Thursday, is a young person, but the history of the Ukrainian banking sector had a successful experience of the central bank's work headed by a young specialist: Arseniy Yatseniuk headed the NBU in 2004.
"Maybe we would have another experience of successful work… We had a positive experience with Yatseniuk, while not to have the same positive experience with Arbuzov," he said.
Suhoniako said that the central bank leadership has difficult goals linked with the resistance to large-scale crisis aftermath.
"I would not envy the person who would head the NBU today," he said.
He added that the bad debt exceeds UAH 90 billion, and a rise in crediting is still small along with inefficient legal protection of the creditors' interests.
Suhoniako said that Volodymyr Stelmakh's work on the post of the NBU governor had some drawbacks: the national currency sharply devaluated ad errors in refinancing were made. However, his professional level is indisputable, he said.