By Iryna KLYMENKO, The Day
On July 1, commercial banks were authorized, under NBU Board of Governors
Resolution No. 265 of June 4, to demand from their clients payment and
settlement accounts that confirm the "target-oriented" utilization of cash.
As the NBU spokesman Dmytro Rikberh told The Day, the resolution
was passed "to tighten control over the flow of cash funds." He specially
noted that "the resolution is of an advisory nature." Thus if a client
refuses to submit the relevant documents, alleging the absence of a law,
nothing will happen to him.
Let us note that such a step of NBU could have been foreseen. As far
back as May, the National Bank resolved to restrict the amount of cash
operations for bank clients. The same resolution placed under the gunpoint
of NBU regional branches the banks which wrote off their accounts the excessive
cash amounts. Hence it is logical that Resolution No. 265 should have been
initiated, as Mr. Rikberh explained, by the banks that want to get "the
necessary tools" to affect clients who abuse the norms of decency.
However, the struggle against shadow transactions is only half the real
reason why the NBU is combating cash deals. According to experts, the increased
cash circulation was the result of both the liberalization of the currency
market and the pre-election repayment of public-sector debts. In the former
case, commercial banks, receiving cashless hryvnias on the currency market,
would convert these into cash and issue the latter to their clients "for
urgent purposes," such as payment for goods, services, and labor. In this
case, most of the money would never return to the banking system. In the
latter case, enterprises that legally service the population by cash are
preoccupied with the same thing: how to convert their income into more
reliable banknotes, for example, into cash dollars.
So the National Bank wants using this resolution to kill two birds with
one stone: to reduce the scope of shadow operations that have increased
on the eve of elections and to curb the entrepreneurs' inflation expectations
that have risen for the same reason. Will the bank get at least one bird
in the hand?






