PrivatBank reported that in the first week, the bank’s clients opened 1,700 new Capital deposits for a total of almost $6.5 million. This is quite an interesting statistic, given the general skepticism about the recent initiative of the National Bank.

Recall that since October 21, the National Bank has allowed Ukrainians to buy dollars without limit in the amount at the official rate of the NBU – since then it has remained unchanged at 36.6 UAH / $. But there are two obligatory conditions: the purchased currency must be placed on a fixed-term – from six months – deposit in a bank, without the right of early termination, and after the expiration of the deposit, the purchased dollars can also be sold at the official rate. In PrivatBank, he was among the first to offer such foreign currency deposits as part of a new deposit called Capital and promoted it as a reliable way to protect hryvnia savings from foreign exchange risk from the risk of exchange rate fluctuations.

This mechanism was proposed as an alternative to the ability to buy non-cash currency under placement on a deposit for at least 3 months within the limit of ₴100,000, however, with a payout in foreign currency (cash or non-cash) upon the expiration of the deposit. It should be noted that in this case, the purchase of currency is carried out at the market rate, established by a separate bank on the date of the operation.

At first, monobank planned to add such deposits, but eventually changed their minds – monobank co-founder Oleg Gorokhovsky launched a survey on the need to introduce a deposit at the official rate as such, and the majority agreed with him, recognizing such deposits as unnecessary. For comparison, in early October, Oleg Gorokhovsky said that in the two months since the launch of the sale of currency in the application , monobank customers bought currencies for 110 million dollars. At the same time, Raiffeisen opened about 45,000 deposits for almost $50 million over the same period.