Financial news, budget and personal finances
May's price slowdown in Ukraine appears positive, but the NBU notes that fundamental price pressure—in services and processed products—is only intensifying, and these components are independent of harvest cycles or seasonal factors.
The Verkhovna Rada has tied police salaries to the cost of living — as is already the case in NABU, BEB and DBR. The issue is not about the figure itself, but where the state will find the money during wartime.
The Cabinet proposes a guaranteed basic payment of 6,000 hryvnia, but the actual cost of living for a pensioner already exceeds this amount. Parliament is awaiting the bill within a month — with a built-in contradiction within it.
The Verkhovna Rada has adopted amendments to the 2026 state budget, incorporating a record European loan into the document. The deficit is formally reduced from 18.5% to 12.1% of GDP — however, economists are already warning that the figures do not include funds for military expansion.
The Verkhovna Rada did not revoke the indefinite status of PEP, but made it less painful: banks are now required to conduct enhanced due diligence only for one year after dismissal, then only based on actual risk.
Group Nova wants to transform BTA Bank, with 640 clients and a single branch, into Ukraine's first financial inclusion bank. The regulator has not yet seen any documents.
Instead of the 23% that individuals technically should be paying now, they will pay 10% on income from digital platforms — but only on amounts exceeding 2,000 euros per year. This is an IMF benchmark that unexpectedly received support from business associations.
Starting January 1, 2027, property owners will pay 5% personal income tax instead of 18%. The total tax burden will drop from 23% to 10% — provided, of course, that landlords actually begin declaring their income.
Naftogaz Group has concluded a principal agreement with a committee of eurobond holders: maturity dates for two series of bonds have been extended by seven to eight years. The freed-up resources will be directed toward repairing infrastructure that suffered more damage from shelling in 2025 than during the first three years of the full-scale war combined.
The National Bank of Ukraine set the official exchange rate at 44.8437 UAH/USD — another historical low for the national currency. What lies behind this and where is the limit of the decline?
# Translation Oslo is allocating funds not simply for weapons—but for joint production that is to deliver 200 unmanned naval drones by the end of 2025. Behind them lies logic simpler than geopolitics: without a fleet of drones, the Black Sea corridor, through which 200 million tons of cargo has already passed, remains vulnerable.
The seventh tranche of the Ukraine Facility closed another budget "hole." But the main news is not the amount, but the precedent: the EU is compensating Ukraine for the first time for reforms completed ahead of schedule.
The Verkhovna Rada Committee approved changes to the 2026 budget that direct almost the entire first tranche of the Ukraine Support Loan to the military. The repayment conditions for the €90 billion loan remain without specific timelines.
The European Commission has frozen payments under the Ukraine Facility due to an unexpanded anti-corruption court and a failure to launch verification of judges' declarations. Overall, Ukraine has failed to receive over 3.7 billion euros in 2025 — and the failure in parliament continues.
The Budget Committee of Parliament recommended restoring the Road Fund to a quarter of its pre-war volume. Behind this decision lie three years without scheduled repairs, Naiem's dismissal, and a winter that finished off the road surface.
# Intesa Sanpaolo Makes Unexpected €30.6 Billion Bid for Monte dei Paschi di Siena, Thwarting Banco BPM's Merger Plans Intesa Sanpaolo has made a surprise offer worth €30.6 billion to acquire Monte dei Paschi di Siena, derailing plans by rival Banco BPM, which had proposed a merger with MPS on equal terms just days earlier. Behind the scenes lies a battle for control of insurance company Generali.
# NATO Summit in Ankara May Approve €70 Billion Ukraine Aid Package with New Transparency Mechanism NATO may adopt a €70 billion aid package for Ukraine at the Ankara summit, featuring a new transparency mechanism. However, five major allies have just blocked Rutte's initiative requiring mandatory contributions of 0.25% of GDP.
Investors are locking in profits amid expectations of Federal Reserve rate hikes — and this is far more than just a market correction.
The government is allocating an additional 2 billion hryvnias to Kyiv for protecting energy infrastructure and heat supply. The funds are going to the city whose resilience plan is the only one among all regions that failed to receive approval from the National Security and Defense Council.
EasyPay and City24 control 70% of the self-service terminal market. A fine of 270 million hryvnias is not the final word, but the beginning of a rules change for the entire industry.
Austrian RBI announces exit from Russia for the third consecutive year and stays for the third consecutive year. CEO of Ukrainian Raiffeisen Bank Natalia Gurina explains why — and the answer is more complex than "they want to but can't."
Raiffeisen Bank Head Natalia Gurina has warned against continuing a 50% corporate tax on banks beyond the first quarter of 2027. She is backed by the National Bank of Ukraine and a number of bankers. Opposed to the extension are Getmantsev and, tacitly, the IMF.
The government is opening the capital markets to a foreign strategic investor through an open tender. The National Securities and Stock Market Commission is already insisting on stricter requirements for candidates than provided for in the draft law.
In May, Ukraine's international reserves declined by 5.2% to $45.7 billion. Interventions and debt payments outweighed inflows from the IMF and World Bank.
May revealed the price of currency stability: record $46.68 billion in reserves at the beginning of the month fell to $45.7 billion by June 1st — due to massive foreign currency sales and debt payments that were not covered by external assistance.
Ukraine has raised the bar for its exports nearly twofold — from $48 billion to $85 billion per year. But between the signed document and actual results, there has always stood one question: the mechanism.
The supervisory board of the state bank has declared the absence of violations following the scandal with the "tapes." However, who will verify these conclusions and how remains an open question.
Since the beginning of 2026, the Bank of Russia has already sold nearly 28 tons of gold. This is not an anti-crisis maneuver — it is a systematic depletion of reserves that the Kremlin has been accumulating for decades as insurance against sanctions.
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development has approved emergency financing for Dnipro's utilities. Details—and open questions about spending transparency.
# Investigation: Orbán's Personal Revenge Behind March 5 Cash Courier Arrests An investigation by Telex revealed that the detention of cash couriers on March 5 was not based on law, but on Prime Minister Viktor Orbán's personal decision to retaliate against Ukraine over disruptions to the Druzhba oil pipeline. Following electoral defeat, prosecutors reclassified the case and acknowledged that there was no evidence.