Ukrainians are buying less foreign currency from banks.
Wednesday, April 5, 2023
In March 2023, the population of Ukraine sold $1.388B in cash and non-cash currency to commercial banks and bought $1.812.3B. The net currency purchase amounted to $424.3M.
Thus, according to the National Bank in March Ukrainians reduced their currency purchases by $80.5M compared to February, when they bought $504.8M.
Since the beginning of 2023, Ukrainians have sold $5.140B and bought $7.097B, with a net purchase of $1.957B. The data show that demand for non-cash currency halved to $147.1M from $310.3M in March.
Ukrainians buy currency from banks at a rate close to the official one (36.6 UAH/$1). As the exchange rate fell from UAH 40 to 38 for $1 on the market in March, there was less incentive to make these transactions.