OREANDA-NEWS. On 07 April 2009 was announced, that the NBU has adopted the Resolution #107 concerning the exchange rate control, which will take place since 23 April 2009. The resolution dismisses the NBU requirement 13, which consisted of three foreign exchange position requirements. Namely, the requirement 13 stated that the commercial bank was allowed to have total net foreign exchange position not exceeding 30% of its regulatory capital. Meanwhile net long and short foreign exchange positions (13-1 and 13-2 respectively) were not to exceed 20% and 10% of the regulatory capital, respectively.  Instead of the requirement 13, the NBU stated net foreign exchange position limits, identical to the requirements 13, 13-1 and 13-2 mentioned above. Additionally, the resolution changed the requirement on the metal forward transactions. In particular, the commercial banks were allowed to conduct forward operations in metals in the amount not exceeding net foreign exchange position of the bank (30% of the regulatory capital), while before the amount of such transactions was not to exceed 5% of the regulatory capital. Note that long (short) net foreign exchange position denotes the amount of foreign exchange assets over (below) the foreign exchange liabilities of the commercial bank.

Millennium Capital sees the news to be MIXED. On the one hand, the commercial banks are to suffer problems due to the new NBU’s requirements. Namely, since 23 April the NBU will check the foreign exchange positions of the commercial banks on the daily basis, rather than on the monthly one, which follows from the status of limit of such a positions. This will require the commercial banks to balance their foreign exchange assets and liabilities every day, in most of cases forcing them to sell the extra foreign exchange on their accounts. Additionally, a lot of banks may transform foreign exchange on their accounts into precious metals, increasing the demand for metals on the domestic market. On the other hand, everything else being equal, we expect that hryvnia may slightly revalue in late April, related to the increase of the foreign currency supply on the foreign exchange market. Moreover, the supply may increase when the NBU will start to control over the balance accounts of the commercial banks, where some banks hold the major parts of the foreign exchange directed on the speculations.

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