The NBU Board presents the financial and administrative bloc to Rozhkova

The Board of the National Bank of Ukraine once again changed its organizational structure. Now the first deputy head of the National Bank, Ekaterina Rozhkova, who has a long-standing conflict with the head of the NBU Kirill Shevchenko, will be in charge of the financial, administrative and operational bloc. That is, in fact, it was reduced to the level of manager.

The regulator said in a statement about the new management structure.

Note that this is the second degradation of Rozhkova’s status in the last month and a half.

On October 20, she was removed from prudential supervision, to which Valeria Gontareva had placed her when her first vice president was appointed. Supervision is one of the key areas in the NBU, it includes departments that are responsible for financial monitoring, inspections of banks and non-bank financial institutions, licenses, etc.

When the first vice president was removed from this activity in October, she was assigned the scope of regulation of the financial sector, which includes areas of consumer protection and development of methodologies.

However, before that, there were persistent rumors that they wanted to fire Rozhkova. He was a member of Gontareva’s team, whose representatives Shevchenko methodically eliminated. He offered to leave and Rozhkova, but she refused. Then they wanted to “leave” in a bad way and even prepared to be fired, but after the intervention of the IMF (the Fund defended the first vice president) they abandoned this idea and decided on October 20 simply to reduce powers.

But now they have been further reduced.

Now Rozhkova has been entrusted with the financial, administrative and operational bloc. In banking jargon, it is called “economic”, because the bankers immediately began calling the first vice president “manager.” You will now subordinate a department (to work with problem assets) and 5 departments:

– Sales and purchasing department;

– Department of overseeing the activities of the National Bank;

– Accounting department;

– Operations department;

– Department of Financial Control.

Under Gontareva, Vice President Roman Borisenko was the manager of the national bank, and they say that he distinguished himself in this area: first, the auditors and then the new president of the National Bank, Kirill Shevchenko, had many questions about his decisions on the buy / sell of NBU properties.

Following Shevchenko’s arrival and Borisenko’s dismissal, Yaroslav Matuzka, who had previously worked at Privatbank and was considered a good lawyer, was brought into this position. And now Katerina Rozhkova has been put in the position of manager.

Thus, a new precedent was created in the history of the National Bank. For the first time, the first vice president took the economic direction, this was not the case for any president: from Hetman and Yushchenko to Gontarev de Smoliy. Generally, the first vice president was responsible for the strategic directions of the NBU, such as monetary policy, exchange rate or supervision.

By the way, Yaroslav Matuzka, who was previously involved in economic management, was largely promoted to prudential supervision.

Prudential supervision returned to its original state, which was before perestroika on October 20. Then Shevchenko combined prudential supervision with a common lockdown and subordinated it directly to himself. And now everything has returned to its previous positions. Prudential supervision is again separated into a separate block and is subordinate to Matuzka.

The two methodological divisions that remained after the simplification of Rozhkova’s functions were divided between two vice-presidents:

– Dmitry Sologub, in charge of monetary policy, received the Department of Methodology to Regulate the Activities of Non-Bank Financial Institutions under his control;

– Yuri Geletiy, who controls market transactions (interbank foreign exchange, refinancing, depositary), was subordinate to the Department of methodology to regulate the activities of banks.

However, this change in the NBU may not be the last.

According to Strana’s sources at the National Bank, Shevchenko made a new “reorganization” not of his own free will, but at the urgent request of the IMF, with which difficult negotiations on a new tranche are underway.

Shevchenko complied with this request, but in a very cunning way.

“The IMF demanded the return of the structure that was in before October 20. Which means, obviously, the return of Rozhkova’s powers. Although, probably, this particular name did not sound. But it is clear what it meant. But Shevchenko did it in her own way: she changed the structure and Rozhkova was reduced to the level of a caregiver, making it clear that she is no longer a tenant in the National Bank. Now let’s see how the IMF will react to this, “says the source.

Recall that the confrontation between the leadership of the NBU and Rozhkova and Sologub, the last of the team of the former head of regulator Yakov Smoliy, has been going on since October, when the National Bank rebuked them and did not express confidence in them. This decision is explained by the violation of the one voice policy.

Later it turned out that the basis for these decisions was the publication in the Kyiv Post and Sologub’s phrase in one of the interviews, according to which the National Bank supposedly “returned to the situation in 2015, in which it was already, when a loan IMF confidence needs to be purchased practically from scratch. ” …

Previously, we examined in detail why the NBU cannot fire Rozhkova in any way and what this confrontation will result within the financial regulator.