Population sells FX currency for $237.8 mln more than buys in April – NBU

KYIV. May 5 (Interfax-Ukraine) – The volume of foreign currency sales by Ukraine’s population exceeded the volume of its purchase by $237.8 million in April, which is lower than the March figure of $357.4 million, the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) reported.

According to the data on its website, net sales are still formed due to non-cash currency in the conditions of the almost complete ban on its purchase by the population introduced by the National Bank since the beginning of the war: in April, the volume of currency sales decreased to $252.6 million from $375.3 million in March, while purchase volumes are up to $8.6 million from $18.6 million.

In the cash market, the volume of transactions even decreased, despite the NBU permission to banks from mid-April to sell foreign currency in volumes not exceeding its purchase. If in March banks sold $72 million to the population, then in April – $62.7 million. The volume of purchases of foreign currency from the population on the official market also decreased in April – to $68.8 million from $71.3 million a month earlier.

At the same time, in general, bank customers bought more non-cash currency in April than they sold: the net purchase amounted to $419 million compared to $165.1 million in March.

In general, since the beginning of this year, the population has sold foreign currencies by $28.2 million more than they bought, while bank customers, on the contrary, bought it by $2.84 billion more than they sold.

According to the NBU data, turnover in the official cash foreign exchange market in March-April fell by more than 20 times compared to February, and by more than 30 times compared to December.

The volume of sales of non-cash currency decreased by an average of half compared to pre-war levels, while the volume of purchases fell by almost two orders of magnitude.