How to unleash bank lending to boost the Ukrainian economy?

The Centre for Economic Strategy (CES) invites you to join the March review of the Ukrainian economy with a special topic: “How to unleash bank lending to boost the Ukrainian economy?”.

Business lending is growing, but its volume remains insufficient to meet the current economic needs. The level of credit penetration in the economy reached 8.7% of GDP in 2025. This is lower than in neighbouring European economies and falls short of Ukraine’s 2014 figure. Among the key reasons is the National Bank’s interest rate policy, which slows down inflation but does not encourage lending.

At the same time, the economy needs more resources, particularly to rebuild infrastructure and prepare the energy sector for next winter. To revive this process, the NBU is preparing an update to its Lending Development Strategy.

We will discuss in more detail how to encourage banks to lend for recovery efforts on 19 March at 17:00 (Kyiv time) on Zoom.

Our regular monthly reports are available on our website, and data visualisations are available in the War Economy Tracker.

Agenda (Kyiv time):

17:00 – 17:05 Introductory remarks by the moderator.

17:05 – 17:20 Presentation of the March economic review, CES team.

17:20 – 17:30 Presentation of the special topic, Yeleazar Levchenko, CES economist.

17:30 – 18:30 Expert discussion and Q&A:

• Nataliia Butkova-Vitvitska, Member of the Management Board at Oschadbank, in charge of Micro, Small and Medium Business;
• Sergiy Nikolaychuk, First Deputy Governor at the National Bank of Ukraine;
• Andrii Teliupa, Adviser to the Minister of Economy of Ukraine.

Moderator: Maria Repko, Deputy Executive Director of the Centre for Economic Strategy.

The event will be held in Ukrainian with simultaneous translation into English.

This event has been funded by the UK International Development from the UK government; however, the views expressed do not necessarily reflect the UK government’s official policies.