Ukraine expects dollar exchange rate to rise to UAH 45 – survey

Ukrainian citizens and bankers expect the dollar exchange rate to reach 45 hryvnyas.

A fresh survey conducted by the National Bank of Ukraine and published this week showed a rise in devaluation sentiment.

The survey focused on exchange rate expectations in the hryvnia-dollar pair for the next 12 months. The data was collected from three groups whose representatives were interviewed in January 2025: banks, financial market experts and households.

The results showed the following:

• banks expect the exchange rate to rise to UAH 45.31/$;
• among financial analysts – up to 45.19 UAH/$;
• among households – up to UAH 44.53/$.

In all groups there is a worsening of expectations, if compared with the indicators of previous NBU surveys. Thus, bankers used to expect the dollar at UAH 44.92/$ (39 kopecks better than the current estimate), financial analysts – at UAH 44.83/$ (36 kopecks better than the current estimate), and households – at UAH 44.11/$ (42 kopecks better than the current estimate).

Expectations were much more optimistic exactly a year ago, in January 2024. At that time they were in the range from UAH 40.13/$ (households) to UAH 41.31/$ (bankers), while the estimate of financial analysts was at UAH 40.29/$.

Today Media reported that after the US and Russian delegations met in Riyadh and Donald Trump harshly criticised Vladimir Zelensky, the Russian ruble strengthened to 89.7 RUB/$ and the Ukrainian stock index on the Warsaw Stock Exchange fell 8%.