Finance
Financial account significantly negative.
Bonds: Debt rollover ratio remains decent YTD
The Ministry of Finance refinanced 90% of debt redemptions in February in all currencies; however, the rollover ratio YTD exceeds 100%.At last week’s primary auction, the MoF raised UAH11bn (US$287m) without changes in interest rates. This was one of the largest weekly borrowings this year. Last week’s proceeds were split almost equally between local and hard currencies. See details in the auction review.Thanks to large volumes of UAH borrowings in February, the total monthly refinancing level in all currencies was 90%. YTD, the total rollover rate stood at 119%, including 88% in US dollars and 93% in euros. Borrowings continue to exceed repayments only in local currency. The rollover ratio was 138% in February and 190% YTD.Due to significant redemptions of USD-denominated securities last week, the volume of domestic bonds outstanding slid in February by 0.2%. Except for banks, portfolios of all bondholder groups declined.During March, the Ministry must repay UAH18bn (approximately US$467m) of UAH debt (including UAH16bn next week and UAH2bn at the end of the month) and US$430m in FX-denominated bills (in two weeks). So, in preparation for significant repayments, the MoF has added a new US dollar issue to today’s offering and will, thus, offer USD-denominated bills three times in March.
ICU view: The MoF has already refinanced all scheduled for January and February domestic debt redemptions, largely thanks to UAH notes. It will likely try to step up FX borrowings in view of upcoming sizeable redemptions in March to ensure the rollover for FX instruments is at least 100%. April’s schedule is very light on redemptions with only UAH2.5bn scheduled, so the Ministry will be accumulating liquidity for May repayments when UAH40bn (about US$1bn) and EUR277m are to be redeemed.
Other Topics of Interest
Average Salaries in Ukraine – An Illustration of Wartime Life and Economy
The latest report from Ukraine’s State Statistics Service showed an increase in salary in different industries throughout 2023, but the numbers might not reveal the full picture.
Bonds: Investors wait for signals from MoF
Ukrainian Eurobond prices rose significantly last week in anticipation of the start of debt restructuring negotiations.Last week, Ukrainian Eurobond prices rose by an average of 9.6%. The prices shifted to 26‒32 cents per dollar, and the price range for Ukrainian Eurobonds with different maturities narrowed to 11.3%. The VRI’s price increased by 4% to 47 cents per dollar of notional value. The EMBI index increased by 0.2% last week.
ICU view: Last week, investors were actively discussing rumours of an imminent start to negotiations on restructuring Eurobonds. Despite lack of new material information about possible restructuring terms, bondholders were broadly optimistic and took the rare signals from the government as a sign that a full-fledged restructuring rather than extension of a standstill agreement looms.
FX: FX market balance improves again
The demand for hard currency decreased last week, which allowed the NBU to reduce its interventions and strengthen the official hryvnia exchange rate.In the interbank FX market, the purchase of foreign currency by bank clients (legal entities) decreased by 20% last week. At the same time, hard currency sales increased by 13%, implying net sale of foreign currency of US$38m. The official hryvnia exchange rate strengthened by 0.5% last week to UAH38.16/US$ for yesterday.Net purchases of hard currency in the retail FX market decreased to US$203m. The cash exchange rate in systemically important banks strengthened by 0.2% to UAH38.0‒38.6/US$.The overall improvement in the FX market balance allowed the NBU to reduce its FX sale interventions to US$321m.
ICU view: With no significant demand for hard currency from government entities for import contracts, the FX market balance improved. Despite the relatively favourable situation and below-average deficit in the market, the NBU gives little room to the hryvnia to strengthen, likely indicating its strong preference for gradual hryvnia depreciation in the mid-term.
Economics: Financial account significantly negative on lack of foreign aid
In January, Ukraine’s financial account turned significantly negative while the current account balance improved markedly.The current-account deficit improved to US$0.5bn in January thanks to a better balance of trade in goods. Export of goods was up 12% YoY while imports surprisingly declined 1%. The balance of trade in services was little changed in December, but improved substantially vs January 2023, which reflects a decline in expenditures of Ukrainian refugees abroad. Migrant incomes fell 17% YoY, but still offset more than a third of the trade deficit. Transfers to government were insignificant as Ukraine did not receive any new grant funding from the US.The financial account was negative at US$1.4bn, the largest deficit since September 2022. FX cash outflows from banks (the largest channel of private capital flight) increased in January, while flows through other channels remained little changed. Unlike in previous months, Ukraine did not receive any sizeable loans in January 2024, as Ukraine’s allies were finalizing formalities to unlock funding in the following months.
ICU view: January balance-of-payments data are not indicative of the trends through end-2024. We expect the current account deficit to widen in money terms in subsequent months on the growing shortfall of external trade. Meanwhile, the financial account is expected to turn positive as of March as Ukraine is expected to receive the first tranche of the EU loan. We project Ukraine’s 2024 current-account deficit at 5.2% of GDP, little changed vs 2023. At the same time, it is going to be fully covered by the financial account surplus. We, thus, expect relatively stable NBU reserves and exchange rate during 2024.
Economics: Ukraine’s public debt little changed in January
Ukraine’s public debt was down 0.3% in US$ terms in January to US$144.9bn.The government raised only nominal volume of new debt from its foreign partners in January and also marginally increased local debt.
ICU view: January statistics are not indicative of a further trend through end-2024. While the public debt is also likely to stay nearly flat in February, it will start growing from March as Ukraine is scheduled to receive sizeable loans from the EU and other international partners. We expect an end-2024 debt-to-GDP level close to 90%, up from about 83‒84% at end-2023.
Read the full report here.
The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), the city state’s central bank and financial regulator, has joined forces with major financial institutions and FinTechs to release a white paper aimed at keeping AI agents in finance operating within safe limits.
The paper, called Safeguards for Agentic Finance at Runtime (SAFR), lays out an industry-built framework designed to let AI agents perform financial tasks in a manner that is safe, secure and dependable. It has been produced under BuildFin.ai, the MAS programme that backs the responsible creation and rollout of AI tools across the financial sector.
The push comes as AI agents take on more autonomous work at a pace that makes hands-on human oversight impractical. In response, firms require real-time controls that keep agent behaviour inside the mandates, policies and risk limits they have defined. SAFR answers this with a series of governance checkpoints that check and log each action an agent proposes before that task is carried out.
The framework extends the AI Risk Management toolkit created through MAS’ Project Mindforge, concentrating on how protections can be put into practice at the moment an agent acts. The white paper maps out how measures such as policy bound execution, real time validation, auditability and interoperability can be woven into system operations, giving institutions the confidence to deploy agents consistently.
Industry participants have already tested SAFR in several settings. These include agent-assisted payments and treasury work, where agents handle routine transactions inside set mandates to cut friction and lift efficiency; wealth management and advisory processes, where agents examine documents and produce structured assessments within tightly defined task limits to speed up compliance reviews; and client engagement, where agents create insights and draft materials within approved content boundaries so staff can serve clients more productively.
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Investors
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Talking about finances can be stressful, but it’s even more stressful if you’re not sure what advice is good and what advice might put you in a worse position than you started in.
Recently, a Reddit user who goes by market_vision1 asked, “What is the worst financial advice people still repeat?” I took out a little pen and paper while I was reading through these, like, “Lemme write that down. And that. Oh! And that, too!” I’m curious what you think, though. Are all of these things we should avoid financially?
1. “One of the more damaging ideas out there is ‘Oh, you’re young, don’t worry about money, just go have fun and worry about it when you are older.’ Of course, the number one regret I hear from clients nearing retirement is that they wish they had just started saving when they were younger.”
—u/hems86
2. “The ‘tax bracket’ myth should be illegal. My uncle turned down a $10K raise because he thought he’d ‘lose money.’ He literally paid $10,000 to avoid $2,200 in taxes. That’s not a tax strategy. That’s a $7,800 donation to the Dumba— Fund, and he’s the chair.”
—u/Serious_Cress5040
Related: “31 Things Only Super Wealthy People Can Buy That You Probably Don’t Even Know Exist”
3. “People living outside of their means and not realizing it. They say things like, ‘You deserve X, don’t settle for less.’ Most of the people I see who are broke are not 100% victims of the system. The majority of people waste their money on dumb stuff that they can’t afford. They’ll tell me they’ve cut out all unnecessary spending, but when I look at their actual expenses, I see otherwise. Spending $800 a month on DoorDash, financing a new car with a $900 monthly payment, going on international vacations, spending 70% of their income on rent in a fancier apartment when there are options for cheaper living.”
—u/hems86
4. “I’m a financial planner, and some of the worst advice I’ve ever heard is ‘Don’t pay off your credit cards in full. Carrying a balance on your credit card builds your credit; paying it off every month hurts your score.’ People say this to me all the time when I ask why they carry a balance on their card with 25% interest when they have more than enough to pay it off.”
—u/hems86
5. “It’s not so much advice as it is a financial choice. I know people who are taking out 96-month loans on cars they never should’ve considered in the first place, just because they can make the car note when it’s stretched over eight years. They never considered the interest on the loan plus the rate cars depreciate and are befuddled when they can’t afford to trade it in.”
Finance
I’m a 25-year-old grad student on a budget. I’ve struggled to accept financial help from my Boomer and Gen X friends.
In August, I quit my steady job as a New York City public high school teacher to start a full-time graduate program in Manhattan. I worried about the choice not only because I loved my work with the kids, but also because I had traded a consistent paycheck and affordable health insurance for tens of thousands of dollars in tuition.
When I was teaching, I prepared for the cost by scrimping to save every cent I could. But my account balance still wouldn’t fully cover two years of school and living expenses.
Throughout my savings journey, I learned a lot of lessons, especially from my older friends.
I jumped into major money-saving mode
As a result, I redoubled my frugal efforts. I made a rule that I wouldn’t eat out or order takeout unless it was someone’s birthday. I asked to meet people in parks rather than restaurants and suggested $5 happy-hour spots from a meticulously crafted list on my phone.
On rare occasions when I dined out, I looked at the prices before deciding what to order and pored over the bill with a calculator.
It worked. While it was still difficult to watch my savings dwindle — buoyed occasionally by small deposits from part-time jobs — I kept my costs (relatively) low for a 20-something in the city. Most friends understood my restrictions or were in similar situations.
I worried when my older friends routinely paid for me
But this approach didn’t work as well with my five older friends from my intergenerational writer’s group. We’d been meeting weekly on Zoom for several years when we started visiting each other in our home states across the country. As women in their 40s and 60s in dual-income households with established careers, they understandably gravitated toward nicer places where the cheapest cocktail cost $20. My dive bars with weirdly stained walls weren’t going to cut it.
When I visited two of these friends in Chicago, I anticipated that we’d go to swanky spots and saved up for weeks, cutting out anything nonessential from my grocery list — chocolate-covered pretzels, bananas, frozen fried rice.
But when I offered to chip in for our multi-course dinners or luxury spa day, they brushed me off.
I was grateful for their generosity, yet overcome with guilt. They had contributed so much to our time together. I didn’t want to be a freeloader, the friend who couldn’t hold up her end of the deal. How could I pay them back and show my appreciation?
At the end of the trip, my friend Andrea, 46, and I ate lunch in a diner in the Gold Coast. I made one last offer to Zelle her. In response, she said something that stuck with me.
“When I was in my 20s, people helped me,” she told me with an easy smile. “When you’re 40, just pay it forward by buying a younger woman dinner.”
Her wisdom helped me slowly release my anxiety
I mulled over her words on the plane home. I was surprised that her view of the situation differed so much from mine, and relieved she didn’t see me as taking advantage of her. Yet it was still hard to fully let go of the weight in my chest — the feeling of being indebted to someone’s kindness, of accepting a gift while knowing you can’t reciprocate.
Months later, my 64-year-old friend from my writer’s group visited from Florida. We went out for coffee, and I thought to myself, Okay, now this I can afford. But when I offered to cover or at least split it, she waved me off, saying, “My treat.”
I thought of Andrea’s words and told myself, She’s being nice. Don’t worry about it.
“Thank you,” I said, and meant it.
A while later, when another friend visited from Washington, she paid most of our checks at the bars and restaurants we visited. Though I felt a twinge of the usual panic at first, by our second day together, I was able to let it go. As we wandered through the Upper West Side, the tightness in my chest lifted, leaving only gratitude that she was here.
I do plan on paying it forward
Andrea was right, I realized. Helping each other was what friends did, and they clearly weren’t bothered by it. Sure, I wasn’t paying for lavish things or hosting people, but I shouldn’t let my own hangups affect our time together, which always produces some of my favorite memories.
Eventually, I’ll be able to do what they’ve done for me for another woman, who can then help someone else.
Instead of worrying, now I let my friends’ kindness bring us together and smile, knowing that every time I pay for a 20-something woman in the future, I’ll think of them.
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