New US$500 million loan to strengthen Ukrainian banks’ stability, efficiency, and resilience
WASHINGTON, D.C., August 7, 2014 – The World Bank’s Board of Executive Directors today approved a US$500 million operation to finance the First Programmatic Financial Sector Development Policy Loan in Ukraine to support a program of high-priority reform measures in the country’s banking sector.
“The package of reforms supported by this operation will help improve the performance of Ukraine’s banking system and its resilience to both domestic and external risks,” said Qimiao Fan, World Bank Country Director for Belarus, Moldova, and Ukraine. “We are helping the Ukrainian authorities to implement an urgent set of measures aimed at returning the country to a sustainable growth path. Maintaining efficient and stable operations of the banking system is a critical part of this reform agenda, which the World Bank will continue to support through this loan and other instruments.”
In particular, reform measures supported by this loan – the first in a series of two – will strengthen the financial, operational, and regulatory capacity of the Deposit Guarantee Fund (DGF) for the resolution of insolvent banks. At the same time, the operation will support efforts to improve the solvency of the banking system through independent diagnostic assessments of the largest 35 banks in the country. Finally, this operation will assist the authorities in strengthening the supervisory framework to make the banking sector more efficient, transparent, and resilient.
This operation is part of the World Bank Group’s broader crisis-response support package announced in March this year, which aims to provide Ukraine with up to US$3.5 billion by the end of 2014.
The World Bank is a major development partner of Ukraine. With this new investment, the Bank’s active lending portfolio will amount to US$4.19 billion through 13 operations in the country. Since Ukraine joined the World Bank in 1992, the Bank’s commitments to the country have totaled over US$9 billion for 45 projects and programs.
