In Ukraine, in the second half of 2025, loan rates may decrease. These include mortgages, car loan rates, and small business loans. On average, the cost of such lending may fall by 1 percentage point, to 17-18%. This will mean a return of rates to the level of 2024. At the same time, in this case, deposits will become less profitable.
This forecast was voiced by OBOZ.UA by the Vice President of the Association of Ukrainian Banks, Chairman of the Board of Globus Bank Serhiy Mamedov. According to him, the likely decrease in loan interest rates may be due to a possible decrease in the discount rate of the National Bank (NBU) on three-month deposit certificates and other monetary instruments.
“Reducing the discount rate to 14-14.5% will allow banks to more actively develop various credit programs – primarily loans for small and medium-sized businesses, mortgages and car loans, because the cost of funds raised for credit programs will decrease. At the same time, we do not exclude that reducing the rate on three-month certificates of deposit to 17.5-18%, on the basis of which the profitability of most deposit programs is formed, will affect the profitability of hryvnia deposits: rates may decrease by an average of 1-1.5 pp,” the banker warned.
In general, in his opinion, the main factors that will influence the development of the banking sector in the second half of the year will be:
the expected decrease in inflation in annual terms to 9%;
economic growth – by the end of 2025, the country’s GDP may increase by an average of 3%;
the volume of international financial support – since the beginning of the full-scale invasion of the Russian Federation, Ukraine’s annual need for external financial assistance is estimated at $38-40 billion.
“In the second half of the year, society will perceive the war as a greater challenge than inflation or loan rates. After all, the fate of hundreds of thousands of military personnel and millions of our citizens depends on whether at least a short-term ceasefire can be achieved. That is why any conversation about the progress of the banking sector must take into account the military circumstances… At the same time, the stability of banks is the foundation of economic development and confidence in the future of the state,” Mammadov concluded.
What is the discount rate in effect in Ukraine
As of mid-June, the NBU maintains a fairly tight monetary policy. The last increase in the discount rate took place in March – the third in a row, to 15.5%.
Since then, the rate has not fallen. At the last meeting at the time of publication, on June 5, the NBU Council again decided to maintain such a “calculation”.
As the regulator explained, this will support the stability of the foreign exchange market and help control inflation, the pace of which is already ahead of forecasts. The NBU’s goal is to return the indicator to 5% from the current 15.1%.
“The NBU will keep the discount rate unchanged for longer than expected in the April macro forecast. … Maintaining the discount rate at 15.5% will allow us to continue to provide appropriate monetary conditions for reversing the inflation trend in the coming months. At the same time, it is expected that this decision will not have a negative impact on the dynamics of lending,” the National Bank noted.
Recall that the discount rate and its derivatives are, in fact, the cost of NBU loans to commercial banks that can receive long-term or short-term refinancing from it. The discount rate directly affects the cost of money provided by the National Bank to commercial banks. That is, the lower it is, the cheaper banks offer loans and the more borrowers take out loans. A decrease in the discount rate usually signals a slowdown in consumer inflation, and an increase, on the contrary, indicates an increase in prices.
As OBOZ.UA reported, people’s deputies are discussing updating the rules for lending to Ukrainian military personnel. They may be given a mandatory credit limit in the amount of the average monthly salary for the last three months.
At the same time, Ukrainians continue to take out more and more microloans – the number of agreements concluded in the first quarter of 2025 reached 2.17 million (that is, an average of 724 thousand per month) and exceeded the same figure last year by 8%. But the average amount of “salary loans” fell for the first time in two years.
