Vostok Bank of Volodymyr Kostelman takes advantage of the generosity of the fled head of the NBU Kirill Shevchenko
While Kirill Shevchenko enjoys peace in the capital of Austria, and NABU pretends to be actively looking for him, Ukraine is raking up the consequences of the activities of the former head of the National Bank. We are talking, in particular, about billions issued as refinancing to suspicious banks, writes Antikor.
Among other banks that received money from Shevchenko's generous hands, Vostok Bank, to which the NBU issued one billion hryvnias of refinancing on the first day of a full-scale invasion, February 25, raises many questions. At 6.5% per annum, although others received money from the regulator at 7%. And after the NBU raised the discount rate three times, the cost of money from refinancing for banks increased to 27%.
However, Vostok will not give back the money received at such a rate. Why? It's simple – for him, the NBU applied the interest rate swap mechanism. How it works? It's simple – the bank has several swap contracts with the NBU on hedging the interest rate risk for long-term refinancing. These transactions work like insurance — in case the market rates exceed the rate of swap contracts, the bank receives compensation from the NBU.
Given the 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 instead of 27% is only 9.6% per annum. The Refinance Bank attracted government bonds secured by government bonds, which continue to bring him an income of 12.2%. Thus, the “refinance by government bonds” model gives the bank a 2.6% annual margin.
Who in the end will pay for the generosity of Kirill Timoshenko – guess at once. Because not all banks received money under such a system. The same bank “Sich”, which went bankrupt a couple of months ago, for example, did not have any benefits. Why such goodwill towards the Vostok bank, which is frankly called “washing”? You should ask the fugitive head of the NBU about this, but he is far away.
As for the Vostok bank itself, according to the reports, at the end of November, the bank ranks 26th in terms of assets among 69 banks. The bank's assets exceed its liabilities by only one and a half billion hryvnias, but this figure is very formal – in the context of the war and the loss of the territories on which some of these assets are located, even the bank itself does not know the real picture.
Vostok Bank of Volodymyr Kostelman takes advantage of the generosity of the fled head of the NBU Kirill Shevchenko
Profit is also not inspiring – against the background of almost seventeen billion debts, 128 million look rather pathetic. So a billion hryvnias of refinancing is at risk of being lost.
Besides, the owners of the bank raise big questions. Fozzy Group owner Vladimir Kostelman is called the main beneficiary of Vostok Bank. He also owns the Silpo, Fora chains, Belaya Romashka pharmacies and several dozens of 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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