The NBU conducted a survey of the largest banks (five banks in November 2022 and six banks in September 2023) on transactions with Ukrainian cards outside Ukraine. This was reported by the NBU press service.
The purpose of the surveys is to investigate the geographical and targeted structure of Ukrainians’ expenditures abroad.
Cash withdrawals declined sharply
According to the NBU, overall spending in retail chains remained high and their geographic structure stable: the highest spending was traditionally observed in Poland and Germany, which received the largest number of forced migrants from Ukraine.
Cash withdrawals have declined sharply since March 2023, in part due to the slowdown in card tourism.
The regulator noted that the decline in cash withdrawals in Ukraine’s neighboring countries has led to significant relative changes in the geographic structure of these transactions:
- between February and July 2023, Poland’s share decreased from 37% to 18%,
- Slovakia – from 15% to 2%,
- Romania – from 8% to 1%.
At the same time, the share of Germany increased from 6% to 13% and that of Spain from 3% to 7%.
The slight increase in spending in the summer months is due to the revival of seasonal recreation, as evidenced by the largest increase in the countries of marine tourism: Italy, Bulgaria, Croatia, Spain and Greece.
