Ukraine's PrivatBank expands corporate loan portfolio by 44.5% in 9M, plans to grow market share
PrivatBank, Ukraine’s largest state-owned bank, increased its corporate loan portfolio by UAH 15.15 billion, or 44.5%, in the first nine months of 2025, to UAH 49.23 billion, and plans to continue growing aggressively and compete across all market segments, according to Yevhen Zaigraiev, a member of PrivatBank’s management board in charge of corporate business and SMEs.
"We already exceeded our annual plan back in September… Now we’re building projections for the coming years, also setting quite aggressive growth targets, above the expected market growth rates, because we want to expand our market share in lending," he said in an interview with Interfax-Ukraine.
According to National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) data, the corporate loan portfolio of the entire banking system grew by 15.1%, or UAH 123.79 billion, in the first nine months of 2025, to UAH 943.32 billion.
Zaigraiev specified that in the microbusiness segment, the portfolio increased by 18.2% (UAH 2.57 billion) to UAH 16.71 billion; in the small business segment, by 35.6% (UAH 3.91 billion) to UAH 14.89 billion.
In the medium business segment, the corporate loan portfolio grew by 44.1% (UAH 2.26 billion) to UAH 7.38 billion, while in the large corporate segment, which PrivatBank entered only last year, growth reached 2.7 times (UAH 6.41 billion) to UAH 10.25 billion.
"Growth in large corporates is higher because the base was smaller. But even in the micro, small, and medium business segments, we’re growing twice as fast as the market," Zaigraiev commented.
He noted that the loan portfolio quality is nearly perfect, thanks to well-structured risk management procedures: the NPL ratio currently stands at about 1.5% (excluding former owners’ debts), after a three- to fivefold growth in the loan book over the past few years.
Zaigraiev stressed that PrivatBank has the capacity to serve all four segments and intends to compete in each of them.
"Each of these four segments is an absolute priority for PrivatBank. In all of them, we plan to grow as much as market capacity allows," he said.
He recalled that PrivatBank has historically been stronger in the micro and small business segments, where its market share is quite significant: roughly 40–50% of Ukrainian clients hold active accounts with PrivatBank, and about 20% have loans with the bank.
As for the other two segments, Zaigraiev noted that after nationalization, PrivatBank began developing these directions only a few years ago, so its share of active clients there is smaller but still notable – 35–40% of all Ukrainian corporate clients.
"However, most of these clients already implement payroll projects, acquiring, and foreign currency payments with us. We want to offer them the full range of products and services, so last year we began actively expanding lending and related products for these corporate clients… This means the greatest growth potential lies in the large corporate segment," the banker said.
He added that PrivatBank currently serves around 930,000–940,000 active micro, small, and medium business clients, while its closest competitor has 7–9 times fewer.
Zaigraiev clarified the bank’s segment criteria: microbusiness – primarily sole proprietors and legal entities with annual sales of up to UAH 30 million; small business – legal entities with annual sales between UAH 30 million and 300 million; medium (or mid-corporate) business – annual sales from UAH 300 million to 1.5 billion; and above that threshold are large corporate clients.
According to NBU data, PrivatBank’s total assets as of September 1, 2025, reached UAH 1.001 trillion, accounting for 25.6% of all assets in Ukraine’s banking system.