According to the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU), in October the National Bank sold almost $6 billion to meet currency demand, but the hryvnia continued to fall; the official dollar rate set a new historical high five times, the NBU explain.
Dollar exchange rate and intervention volumes in October
The strongest pressure on the hryvnia came at the end of October: over the week the official dollar rate rose from 45.05 to a record 45.60 hryvnia (28 October). After that the hryvnia partially recovered — by 2 November the NBU set the rate at 45.3526 hryvnia per dollar.
Over the week NBU interventions reached $1.82 billion — the largest weekly figure on record, $625 million higher than the previous week. In total, in October the regulator sold almost $6 billion on the interbank market, which was also a monthly record. On the cash market the dollar rose by about one hryvnia over the week — to 46.30 hryvnia in buy and 46.57 hryvnia in sell.
Reasons for pressure on the hryvnia and demand volumes
Deputy Governor Yuriy Heletiy said at a briefing on 29 October that the pressure on the hryvnia was due to rising budget expenditures, which increase overall demand for foreign currency, and a reduction in supply from the agro-industrial sector and metallurgy because of logistics disruptions. According to Heletiy, the average daily net demand on the cashless foreign exchange market in October was $182 million.
In the first two decades of the month the average daily demand was $172 million, while in the last five trading days it rose to $230 million. In the first four days of the final trading week the negative balance of foreign exchange operations by legal entities exceeded $200 million per day, and on Wednesday reached $260 million. For January–October client demand for foreign currency rose by at least 25%, or roughly $16 billion, while supply increased by only $2 billion; export proceeds rose from $36 billion to $38 billion.
NBU reserves and the cost of hryvnia resources
At the start of October international reserves amounted to $47.1 billion. “According to Yuriy Heletiy, this is enough for roughly four months of future imports.” According to the NBU chart, gross reserves were about $57−58 billion at the start of 2026 and fell to roughly $47 billion by the end of September; net reserves decreased approximately from $43−44 billion to $32−33 billion.
In the banking system the rate on overnight deposit certificates rose from 15% in the first half of the year to 16.5% per annum, while overnight loan rates increased from 19% to 20.5%. The interbank rate index UONIA rose from roughly 15% to 16%. The balance of the NBU’s deposit certificates stands at 723 billion hryvnia, of which 565.5 billion hryvnia are overnight instruments; in October the volume of funds attracted by the NBU from banks mostly fluctuated between 420−600 billion hryvnia per day.
At the start of 30 October banks’ correspondent accounts held 489.8 billion hryvnia, 213 billion hryvnia more than the day before — banks received back 565.5 billion hryvnia on overnights and placed new certificates totalling 341.9 billion hryvnia. On the yield curve of hryvnia domestic government bonds (OVDP) as of 2 November the highest yield was about 15.8% at tenors of around one year, while on the six–seven year horizon yields fell to 11%. The official euro rate as of 2 November was 50.6843 hryvnia; a year ago it was about 48.5 hryvnia.
