Money stays in the family

The process of appointing Serhii Arbuzov as head of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) was as quick and straightforward as that of passing the budget. The whole procedure took no more than 20 minutes. Neither the ex-head of the National Bank Volodymyr Stelmakh nor Arbuzov himself gave a speech. Arbuzov was not even given the traditional bouquet. Perhaps they were in such a hurry to appoint him that they forgot.

Stelmakh’s resignation was inevitable. It is even strange that he kept his post so long — almost a year — under President Yanukovych.

Stelmakh first presided over the NBU from January 2000 to January 2003. On December 16, 2004, with the initiative of Viktor Yushchenko, he became the country’s main banker for the second time. And no perturbations, currency surges, financial crisis, accusations of machinations, and non-transparency in allotting money for banks refinancing could remove him from this post.

But they found a substitute. Who is Mr. Arbuzov? Many deputies from the opposition asked this question.

“I have mixed feelings, as Englishmen say: that’s when your mother-in-law is falling into an abyss in your new Mercedes,” the deputy Kyrylo Kulykov joked in his conversation with The Day. “I’m glad Stelmakh left, but I’m upset he left so quietly. Everything I know about Arbuzov is that he worked in the National Bank for two months. And that’s all.”

“He’s too young. This watermelon [arbuz means melon in Russian – Ed.] is too green,” Andrii Pavlovsky, a deputy from the Bloc of Yulia Tymoshenko, couldn’t help making the comparison. “To head the whole banking sector at 34 is very risky! Before that he headed a bank of the fourth category — a small bank with no branches. This is a threat to the entire banking system.”

Not much is known about the 34-year-old banker. The first thing is that he is from Donetsk, and the se­cond is that he is a friend of Viktor Yanukovych’s son Oleksandr. Everyone knows these two facts already.

At 26 he headed the board of UkrBiznesBank. According to a court decision, he has the right not to use his identification code. Perhaps for religious reasons.

He appears to be quite wealthy. As The Day already wrote, for the last year he declared 150 million hryvnias. His property includes a house of over 600 square meters in Donetsk, an S-class Mercedes, and a BMW Z-8.

Journalists also managed to find out that the mother of Serhii Arbuzov is closely connected with the Yanukovych family. Since May 2009 Valentyna Arbuzova has been heading the board of the All-Ukrainian Deve­lopment Bank. Its only shareholder is Donpostachtara LLE, 95 percent of which belongs directly to Oleksandr Yanukovych. Allegedly, Serhii’s mo­ther pushed him to become a banker, employing him at UkrBiznesBank, writes Obkom.

In fact, many experts point out that the close ties with the NBU head may become a problem for Yanu­ko­vych, as Arbuzov’s failures or bad press may rub off on him as well.

However, Arbuzov is mostly cri­ti­cized for his age. Though, to be fair, one should point out that there already was a precedent in the history of Ukraine when a very young person headed the National Bank of Ukraine. In 2002 Serhii Tihipko, the new head of the NBU, made Arsenii Yatseniuk, a little-known economy minister of the Autonomous Republic of the Crimea at the time, his right hand, and almost immediately imposed on him all duties of managing the banking system. Yatseniuk repeatedly said himself how he spent months methodologically mastering all the aspects of the NBU’s work; how he persistently asked directors of departments to teach him; how he came to work before eight and left at midnight. As a result, the young first deputy head went through fire and water, assuming responsibility for helping the system out of the crisis in 2004.

It is unknown whether Serhii Arbu­zov has at least 50 percent of Yatseniuk’s capabilities, but it is obvious that it is too early to bury all the banking system and cry “everything is lost.” Let us see how the young banker shows himself and how the “Donetsk style” will fit in with the Ukrainian financial system.

Maintaining the strength of the national currency is definitely the main task of the NBU head. In the Rada lobby they say that the government needs a person who will print money. Let us hope these are just rumors. One does not want to believe our government is so unreasonable. Since in this case a simple principle works: when the printing press is launched, so is inflation.

COMMENTARIES

Arsenii YATSENIUK, the leader of the political party Front of Changes:

“I remember very well when I was appointed the first deputy head of the National Bank. At that time Anatolii Hachynsky headed the NBU, and then they trained me like a schoolboy for an hour and a half at a sitting of the council of the National Bank: starting with normative acts of the National Bank and finishing with my vision of the monetary policy. What is happening today? The process of privatization of the state property has passed in the country. Now the process of privatization of the entire country through appointing their own people to posts has been finalized. The current government views the country as a joint stock company. They live this way. And the fact that today their own people were appointed means one thing: they privatized the National Bank of Ukraine.”

Petro POROSHENKO, the head of the council of the National Bank of Ukraine:

“A highly professional team works in the National Bank. Serhii Arbuzov has work experience in both the National Bank and in the system of commercial banks. Therefore, I do not think there will be some abrupt moves, as money likes silence. I am sure Serhii Arbuzov will keep to this logic. Besides, the professional personnel of the National Bank will be a guarantee that the country will work to ensure the stability of the currency. I wish Serhii Arbuzov success at this extremely responsible post. I am also sure that Volodymyr Stelmakh will not stay aside of the processes in the banking system and will certainly share his advice, knowledge, and experience.”

Serhii YAREMENKO, the former deputy head of the National Bank of Ukraine:

“The new head can bring something new because all the team is pe­netrated with the spirit of preferring monetary principles, which are now compromised all over the world. Consequently, there is a hope he will act in a new way. He will be a success if he takes into account the drawbacks of the policy conducted by the previous head of the National Bank of Ukraine.

“In my opinion, under the current economic conditions, it is necessary to leave the old development model of the banking sector. However, it will be very difficult to do this, as it is ne­cessary to overcome the stereotypes that have become entrenched by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund for the last 15 years.”

Interviewed by Oleksii SAVYTSKY, Natalia BILOUSOVA, Alla DUBROVYK, Ivan KAPSAMUN, The Day