Vostok Bank owned by Volodymyr Kostelman benefits from the former NBU head Kirill Shevchenko's generosity.
While Kirill Shevchenko is in Austria, and NABU claims to be actively searching for him, Ukraine is dealing with the aftermath of the activities of the former head of the National Bank. This includes billions of hryvnias issued as refinancing to suspicious banks, as reported by Antikor.
Among the banks that received money from Shevchenko, Vostok Bank raises several questions. It received one billion hryvnias of refinancing on the first day of the invasion, February 25, at a lower interest rate compared to others. Later, the cost of money from refinancing for banks increased to 27% after the NBU raised the discount rate three times.
Vostok will not return the money received at such a high rate because it used the interest rate swap mechanism. With swap contracts with the NBU on hedging the interest rate risk for long-term refinancing, the bank receives compensation from the NBU if the market rates exceed the rate of swap contracts.
With an average rate on swap contracts of 7.6% per annum and the current value of the UONIA market index of 23%, Vostok receives a refund of 15.4% per annum from the NBU. The real cost of refinancing for the bank is only 9.6% per annum instead of 27%. The bank attracted government bonds secured by government bonds, which continue to bring him an income of 12.2%. Therefore, the bank gains a 2.6% annual margin with the 'refinance by government bonds' model.
Guess who will ultimately bear the cost of Kirill Timoshenko's generosity. Not all banks received money under such a system. The same bank 'Sich', which went bankrupt a couple of months ago, did not receive any benefits. Why was Vostok bank favored, which is openly called 'washing'? You would need to ask the fugitive head of the NBU about this, but he is far away.
According to reports, Vostok bank ranks 26th in terms of assets among 69 banks at the end of November. The bank's assets exceed its liabilities by only one and a half billion hryvnias, but this figure may not be accurate due to the ongoing war and the loss of some of these assets due to territories.
Vostok Bank owned by Volodymyr Kostelman benefits from the former NBU head Kirill Shevchenko's generosity.
The bank's profit is not inspiring, as it only amounts to 128 million against the backdrop of almost seventeen billion in debts. Therefore, the billion hryvnias of refinancing are at risk of being lost.
Additionally, the owners of the bank raise serious questions. Fozzy Group owner Vladimir Kostelman is considered the main beneficiary of Vostok Bank. He also owns the Silpo, Fora chains, Belaya Romashka pharmacies, and several dozen various legal entities in Ukraine.
Vostok Bank of Volodymyr Kostelman takes advantage of the generosity of the fled head of the NBU Kirill Shevchenko
It is worth recalling that after the annexation of Crimea in 2014, Silpo successfully re-registered its network there under Russian law and continued to work no less successfully.
Returning to Vostok Bank, it, as expected, is on the list of international sanctions:
This, of course, did not stop Kyrylo Shevchenko from issuing a billion hryvnia refinancing.
The decision to allocate refinancing was not affected by the stable downgrade of the ratings of Vostok Bank, which was confirmed exactly on the eve of the allocation of a billion hryvnias: ” class=”wpg_image” width=”640″ height=”324″ />
This decision of Kyrylo Tymoshenko was not influenced by the history of relations between Vostok Bank and the National Bank – in 2019, the regulator fined Vostok UAH 300,000 for failing to properly analyze the financial transactions of its clients. The bank also received a written warning for violating the procedure for the bank to provide information, materials and documents at the request of the NBU.
In addition, the Prosecutor General's Office in 2019 stated that for the period 2017-2019, Vostok Bank and Power LLC Brock” transactions were carried out for an amount exceeding UAH 1 billion. Operations were carried out through the accounts of 116 fictitious individuals opened in the banking institutions “Accordbank”, “Land Capital”, “Ukrstroyinvestbank” and “MetaBank” under the guise of accounts for the provision and servicing of consumer loans.
Later, when the money got into the accounts of the defendants, they disappeared forever. “Money was withdrawn from the current accounts of individuals in cash, while the loans were never repaid,” the investigators then claimed. However, like almost all criminal cases in our country related to big business, this case ended only with loud statements.
What will happen next with Vostok Bank is still an open question. Whether he will follow the Sich Bank, which also generously received refinancing from the hands of Kirill Shevchenko, or whether he will be able to return the borrowed money is unknown. But on the other hand, it is known that on September 20, 2022, Vostok Bank decided to invest UAH 1.8 billion in NBU deposit certificates at 23% per annum. This investment became possible, among other things, due to preferential refinancing from the NBU.
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