Effectively the banks that could compete and have the size and access to cheaper foreign exchange funding as well as trade finance capabilities are Raiffeisen, Ukrsib, Credit Agricole and OTP accounting for 12.6% collectively. Raiffeisen is engaged in dealing with the retail business and the work out of their NPLs. However, its long-serving CEO Mr Lavrenchuk is rumoured to become the Governor of NBU and the management team will be replaced with expatriates from Raiffeisen’s head office. This move will create a major upset in the bank’s structure and may result to a major change in strategy with a considerable time to be needed for bringing the bank back to smooth operation. Alfa who have bought over Unicredito’s Ukrsots bank (6.5% combined) and who have historically being engaged in retail lending and large corporates should continue to pursue this business and should devote resources to the merger with Ukrsots and manage the business lending that should take some time to grasp. Rumours say that they will initiate the merger process in not less than a year and already they have discontinued new business lending servicing existing customers only. FUIB have been given a plan to recapitalise the bank or decrease their assets and therefore they are out of the business for the time being. ING and Citi are providing large corporate and investment banking services only. = Improving quality of borrowers Following the improvement in collecting taxes and the enactment of new legislation, and therefore decreasing the non-declared income, as well as the significant increase in commodity prices and the increase in disposable income, credit affordability has increased among business and individuals. = Increasing loans and deposits that suffice for the credit growth Evolution of loans and deposits 2015-2021 | Banks’ liabilities 711 788 788 783 802 845 875 872 1,070 1,252 1459 1,641 | The European prospect of Ukraine that is supported not only politically but also from the inte