Deposit inflows from both households and businesses went on uninterrupted throughout Q4 2025. The volume of wholesale funding was primarily growing at some of the large banks. This is according to the quarterly Bank Funding Survey.
Overall, the banks anticipate no significant changes in client deposits in Q1 2026: funding volumes from households and businesses will edge lower, and wholesale funding will increase.
As before, the financial institutions are expecting an inflow of funds, in particular from the EU and IFIs, for reconstruction projects. Investor appetite has been another driver behind the banks’ efforts to raise wholesale funding.
The cost of funding increased on average during 2025. In Q4, the vast majority of the banks reported a growing cost of client deposits, with business deposits accounting for most of the increase. The cost of wholesale funding held steady.
For the first time since Q3 2024, the banks articulated an expectation that the cost of funding would decline overall. Only a few large financial institutions anticipated an increase in the cost of the funding from households.
The share of FX-denominated funding has been shrinking for three straight quarters, a downtrend that the banks expect will continue.
The current round of the survey revealed an increase in funding maturity, with the financial institutions saying they expect maturity to grow over the next 12 months.
The vast majority of the banks reported a rise in capital over the past 12 months and said they expect this uptrend to persist through 2026.
The banks once again cited profitability as a key driver of the growth in capital going forward, but said that changes in regulatory requirements, macroeconomic conditions, and risk appetite have been restraining its increase.
The banks jointly holding 14% of the system’s assets reported shareholders’ intentions to scale up capital during 2026.
Over the course of 2025, the respondents pointed to a rising cost of capital, but in Q4, a record share of the banks projected that the cost would go down in the future.
The current Bank Funding Survey was conducted between 12 December 2025 and 9 January 2026 among bank liability managers. The answers were provided by 26 financial institutions holding a combined 96% of the banking system’s assets. The survey’s results reflect the views of the respondents and are not assessments or forecasts by the NBU. A survey featuring expectations for Q2 will be released in April 2026.