The National Bank of Ukraine is updating the list of benchmark domestic government debt securities (benchmark bonds) that the banks have been allowed to use to partially meet the reserve requirements. Starting from 11 December 2024:
- the domestic government debt identified as (ISIN) UA4000227094 will be excluded from the list of benchmark domestic government debt securities, given their scheduled redemption in full on 4 December 2024, and
- the domestic government debt securities identified as (ISIN) UA4000233613, which were first placed by the Ministry of Finance of Ukraine on 26 November 2024, will be added to the benchmark bonds list.
This measure will stimulate banks’ activity at Ministry of Finance’s auctions to place domestic government debt securities, which is essential for ensuring that the state budget is financed without resorting to monetary financing.
As previously reported, the banks have been able to use the securities on the benchmark bonds list to meet up to 60% of the reserve requirements. The benchmark bonds list is made by the NBU based on the proposals of the Ministry of Finance of Ukraine. From 11 December 2024, it will include 15 issues of securities, namely: UA4000227102, UA4000227185, UA4000227193, UA4000227201, UA4000227490, UA4000228043, UA4000228381, UA4000228811 UA4000229116, UA4000232177, UA4000232607, UA4000232615, UA4000232896, UA4000232912, and the new UA4000233613.
The revised list of benchmark bonds the banks have been allowed to use to meet in part the reserve requirement was approved by NBU Board Decision No. 424 On Amendments to NBU Board Decision No. 752 dated 23 November 2017 dated 5 December 2024, to be enacted on 10 December 2024.
Reserve requirements are one of the instruments conventionally used by central banks. This is how reserve requirements operate: a bank sets aside in its correspondent account with the central bank an amount of funds identified as a percentage of the bank’s liabilities (also known as reserve ratio) and marks a share of this percentage as having been covered by benchmark bonds.
The amount is calculated as an average over the reserve period. This allows the bank to smooth out potential ad-hoc fluctuations in liquidity and ensure the effective use of reserve requirements for their primary purpose, which is to absorb some of the banking system’s free liquidity.
Full data on reserve requirements and how the banks have been fulfilling them is available here.