OREANDA-NEWS. January 18, 2010. The NBU has determined the criteria, which break the commercial banks into four categories by their creditworthiness. Namely, the state banks or banks refinanced by the NBU, which have positive financial results will be classified as class “A” banks. Their regulative capital is to be at least UAH 0.6bn, while the overdue loans are to be 10% of the credit portfolio or under 10%. The overdue loans of class “B” and “C” banks should not exceed 15% and 20% of their credit portfolios, respectively. All the other banks will be regarded as class “D” banks. The NBU intends to provide refinancing for the above banks for the period of between one and five years at the rate exceeding 10.25%.

Millennium Capital sees the news to be positive for commercial banks, since this classification of the commercial banks seems to reflect the NBU intention to refinance the banking system of Ukraine. This may improve the liquidity of the commercial banks and increase lending of the real economy in 2010.