Currency restrictions are short-term, says NBU
The restrictions on the purchase of foreign currency introduced by the National Bank of Ukraine to smooth sharp hryvnia exchange rate fluctuations will be short-term ones, Director of the chief monetary and credit policy department of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) Olena Scherbakova said.
"The measures we've taken are short-term measures. They will be canceled after the stabilization of the situation in the country," she said at a roundtable in Kyiv on Thursday, February 13.
She said that the measures taken by the NBU had cut demand for foreign currency.
"There will not be peak loads [on the interbank market] next week. We received the first registers [of applications of banks' clients to buy the dollar on the interbank market]. There are no peak loads," she said.
Scherbakova also said that after the introduction of resolutions Nos. 48-49 the NBU held a meeting with the participation of commercial banks to discuss and explain the measures.
As reported, after the acceleration of the hryvnia devaluation the NBU from February 7 introduced restrictions on the market: bank clients can buy foreign currency on the interbank market only on the sixth working day after sending hryvnias to the special account and settle transactions in any currency on the market only within the ending stocks as of early working day.
