National Bank of Ukraine ups net currency sale to $1.43 bln over past week

MOSCOW. May 30 (Interfax) - The National Bank of Ukraine sold $1,431,600,000 worth of foreign currency over the fourth week of May, thus setting a new record since February 24; the previous all-time high of weekly interventions reached $770 million, and the Bank sold $650.4 million worth of foreign currency the week before.

Meanwhile, the Bank purchased only $7.5 million worth of foreign currency both in the previous week and the week before, Ukrainian media outlets said with the reference to the Bank website.

As reported earlier, the Bank scrapped the upper limit for both the cash sale rate by banks in Ukraine and the hryvnia conversion rate into foreign currency via bank cards outside the country on May 21. In the past, the rate was limited to the hryvnia rate fixed on February 24 plus 10%, or UAH 32.18 to the dollar. The limit for other currencies was based on their cross-rate to the dollar.

In addition, the Bank halved the limit on cash withdrawals from hryvnia-denominated cards abroad to the monthly equivalent of UAH 50,000.

As a result, many hryvnia cardholders abroad intensified exchange transactions in anticipation of a significant growth of the exchange rate.

During the first ten days since February 24, the net currency purchase by the National Bank of Ukraine stood at $690.3 million and Eur20 million, while the ban on currency sale was just imposed, and the list of critical imports was yet to be significantly broadened.

The currency purchase by the National Bank started to decline in the later weeks, while the currency sale was growing. As a result, net interventions by the National Bank rose to $2.2 billion in April from $1.78 billion in March, $0.31 billion in February, and $1.31 billion in January. They neared $3 billion over four weeks of May.

Since the beginning of this year, the National Bank has purchased $1,819,200,000 and Eur110.97 million on the market, and sold $8,566,100,000 and Eur1,789,110,000.

In particular, the Bank has bought $1,162.300,000 and Eur110.97 million and has sold $5,795,900,000 and Eur1,789,110,000 since February 24.

The National Bank posted $26.94 billion forex reserves as of May 1, 2022, down 4% from the beginning of March ($28.11 billion).