Ukrainian banker: Kyiv brings a plane full of US dollars each day to satisfy booming demand for foreign currency

In recent days, there has been an excessive demand for foreign currency in Ukraine. Every day, a plane loaded with cash dollars lands at the Boryspil airport, claims the Managing Director of Credit Optima Bank, Ihor Lvov, reported ubr.ua.

According to the financier, one to two planes per week were enough for Ukrainians before the New Year. Imported cash was given not to currency exchange offices for net sale for population but for payment of deposits and money transfers.

“There was more than enough cash for currency exchange in the domestic market before the New Year. There wasn’t a big demand for it and people were actively selling dollars before the holidays,” Lvov said.

Now, Ukrainians hardly sell any foreign currency at all, even if they need to. Instead, they wait for the exchange rates to increase. However, the number of people willing to buy few hundred “bucks” has sharply increased. This has driven banks to purchase dollars and euro abroad and bring them into the country by the planeload. The demand is so high that supply runs are carried out every day.

“Money is brought by PrivatBank and Oschadbank mostly. They have the biggest bank networks. And then dollar and euro go to other financial institutions. Currency is brought from Frankfurt from whoever a bank has correspondent relations with. The bank vaults of England, Switzerland and Germany are located in this city,” the financier explained.

At the same time he found it difficult to answer how much cash currency is transferred every day by plane. “It’s a commercial secret and only a small number of people have such information. But European Banks would definitely not transfer less than $1 million,” he summarized.

  banks, Ukraine

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