OREANDA-NEWS. January 24, 2011. Borys Tymonkin: “Large international and Ukrainian companies that have relatively smoothly overcome economic slump are of the preference for the Bank. And all our corporate clients, who behaved correctly with the Bank in this period, are also of interest. We started to work in retail sector. And gradual recovery of auto lending and mortgage can be observed. But of course lending in hryvna is expensive, regarding the rules of “gaps” regulation (gap between assets and liabilities). It’s not clear where to get “long” hryvna. In general the only “long” hryvna is GMI money (Government Mortgage Institution). This is a regular post-crisis situation: we start to lend corporate clients, economy starts to function, and in a year or two retail will start its rapid growth”.

The banker also pointed out the most attractive for bank sectors in post-crisis period: “First come vertical—integrated companies of agricultural sector. We are ready to lend them and they know about it. The point is that if we go back for 10 years, we’ll discover that export potential belongs to metallurgy. Today the frontline of export potential belongs to our agrarians. There are well-organized companies with the right strategy, planning, implementation, with strong financial resources – as here, in our country, so are abroad. If recently we have been determined as metal—manufacturing country, today it’s more like agricultural oriented. All large banks burnt themselves on construction sector, so it’s kind of “red flag” so far. Perhaps, the situation might change in a year…”

In general it should be marked that banking system gave crises a shot. Banks have switched their approaches in client’s service towards more pragmatic. That will facilitate the better quality of the services and their convergence to the international standards.