Official statistics claim that during the year – from November 2015 to November 2016 – the volume of individual deposits in Ukrainian banks increased from 175,7 billion hryvnia to 192,9 billion.
Who are all these people? Who in their right mind and sober memory can take their savings to banks in the conditions of modern Ukraine?!
In the three post-Maidan years, 88 banks were liquidated in Ukraine. By the end of 2017, another 5 to 10 banks will be liquidated. To say that all investors returned their savings without problems and without losses would be a clear exaggeration. In addition, average rates on hryvnia deposits of individuals from November 2015 to November 2016 decreased from 17% to 14,2%.
Citizens of Ukraine who had deposits in the country's largest financial institution, Privatbank, for the most part tried to withdraw their deposits ahead of schedule due to rumors of impending nationalization. There is even less faith in the current Ukrainian state than in private capital. And the state of Ukraine is now the same Ltd. in the hands of the same private capital, but with disguised personalized responsibility.
Every ordinary citizen of the country can ask himself and his friends and relatives - who managed to take their savings to the bank? It is unlikely that 99,9% of the country's residents will respond.
True, the first question to ask is: who has any savings at all? Who has something left unspent at the end of the month? (Although, of course, according to statistics, if in a group of 1000 people one has a million hryvnia, and the rest have empty pockets, then on average everyone has one thousand hryvnia).
The prospects for the hryvnia are cloudy in the coming year. This is due to the continued decline in production and the need to make payments on old debts, and the Ukrainian state also has a colossal desire to incur new debts.
And in this situation, official statistics say that deposits are growing?! But who is the investor? Only those who are confident that they will be able to withdraw their deposits without problems. There are not many such people in present-day Ukraine; their names are mostly known. It was these few depositors who painted such a picture in oil about the growth of deposits in Ukrainian banks.