A postal bank will be established in Ukraine. But will the IMF like it?
28 January 15:28
The government has transferred the shares of the First Investment Bank, previously owned by Russian oligarchs, to the Ministry of Community and Territorial Development with the subsequent transfer to Ukrposhta. This was announced by the Prime Minister of Ukraine Denys Shmyhal, "Komersant Ukrainian" reports.
He emphasized that after the creation of the Postal Bank, receiving assistance, social benefits, ordering goods and medicines will become easier, as all these services will be within walking distance.
“Ukrposhta has its branches in all corners of the country, so this will open up new opportunities for Ukrainians who do not use digital tools,” the Head of Government emphasized.
The creation of the Postal Bank has its own history
The idea of creating a postal bank has been circulating in government offices since 2020. The main inspirer of such a bank, of course, was the head of Ukrposhta, Igor Smelyansky. The last attempt to formalize this idea was made last fall.
According to Smelyansky himself, thanks to the joint work of the National Bank of Ukraine, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, the Office of the President of Ukraine and Ukrposhta, Law No. 12044 on financial inclusion was prepared and submitted to the parliament, paving the way for the start of the postal bank.
But this joint coalition was not enough to pass the bill. The Verkhovna Rada did not support the draft law. At the time, it lacked just a few votes to make a positive decision.
In parallel with the work on legislative changes, the Cabinet of Ministers was also preparing a resolution to transfer the shares of the nationalized PINBank to the balance sheet of Ukrposhta, which brought the creation of the Postal Bank closer.
Experts believed that this format was the most acceptable to the main opponent of this idea, the National Bank. The bottleneck was the coordination with the IMF, which insisted that the state refrain from further increasing its share in the banking system. In this case, the status quo remains: the shares of the newly nationalized bank are transferred to the new state-owned bank. However, the IMF still has questions about the extent of the state’s share in the banking sector.
Although… Not long ago, First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy Yulia Svyrydenko said in an interview with Forbes Ukraine that Ukraine was ready to consider the sale of the state-owned Sense Bank.
What is known about PINbank
The nationalized PINbank, owned by Russian Yevgeny Giner, came under state control a year ago in January 2024.
By the decision of the National Security and Defense Council of October 19, 2022, sanctions were imposed on Russian oligarch Yevgeny Giner, and in February 2023, the High Anti-Corruption Court confiscated 88.89% of PIN Bank shares to the state.
The website of JSC First Investment Bank reports that “as of January 17, 2024, the owner of 20,444,834 ordinary registered shares of the bank (which is 88.890583% of the Bank’s authorized capital) is the State of Ukraine”.
