Introducing a 2,000-hryvnia banknote into circulation will annoy the poor - ex-member of NBU Council Shapran

Former member of the National Bank Council Vitalii Shapran believes that introducing a 2,000-hryvnia banknote into circulation will annoy the poor.

He announced this on Facebook, Ukrainian News Agency reports.

"Increasing the maximum denomination of the banknote will annoy the poor. I have already seen sad jokes on social networks that now it will be more convenient to pay a pension, because only 2-3 banknotes are needed," wrote the former NBU official.

He believes that the population will react badly to a 2,000-hryvnia banknote, as it will only inflate the inflationary expectations of Ukrainians.

In addition, Shapran believes that the introduction of the new banknote shows that over the past 7 years (since the introduction of the 1,000 hryvnia note), inflation has averaged about 12% per year, this is against a target of 5% (+/-1.00 pp), i.e. twice the maximum target value.

"The NBU constantly excites the market with high interest rates, talking about the effectiveness of inflation targeting in exchange for artificial cooling of business activity. But where are the results of this work? In 7 years, we have not achieved either decent economic growth or inflation, the high level of which objectively led us to the logical decision to double the denomination of the maximum banknote. I'm not talking about the episode of 2023, when the artificial monetary cooling of the economy blocked the expansion of the defense budget and actually stole our victory. So these questions to the NBU are not removed from the agenda, they are very acute and there is no constructive answer to them," the economist emphasized.

Among the positives, Shapran called the appearance of the new banknote as a preventive measure to update the banknote series, which will not harm Ukraine in conditions of war and counterfeiting.

He also believes that the introduction of a 2,000-hryvnia banknote will lead to a reduction in cash circulation costs and, regardless of the dynamics of the fiscal burden, an increase in the maximum denomination of banknotes will have a positive impact on the cost of servicing cash circulation, and in Ukraine it is considerable.

As Ukrainian News Agency earlier reported, the Chairman of the National Bank Andrii Pyshnyi announced the expansion of the nominal range of the national currency - from September 4, 2026, a new 2,000-hryvnia banknote will be introduced into cash circulation.

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