Ukrainians are buying foreign currency at a record pace: what is happening.

Ukrainian citizens made the largest volume of currency operations in January 2025 in the last 12 years. This was reported by the National Bank of Ukraine.

Ukrainians sold $1.411 billion to banks and bought $2.891 billion. Thus, the net purchase of foreign currency amounted to $1.480 billion.

Interestingly, compared to December 2024, the volume of foreign currency purchases increased by 13.6% and reached such a high level for the first time in the last 12 years. The last time such a volume was recorded was in November 2012, when the population purchased currency for $1.523 billion.

At the beginning of 2025, citizens and individual entrepreneurs placed nearly 70 million deposits in banks that are part of the Deposit Guarantee Fund for Individuals. Of these, 59.2 million deposits total 899.5 billion hryvnias, while 10.3 million deposits amount to 492.7 billion hryvnias in foreign currency.

Banks offered interest rates for new deposits of 10.3% per annum for hryvnia deposits and only 1.1% per annum for foreign currency deposits.

The average rates for new citizen deposits in December were 10.3% per annum for hryvnia deposits and 1.1% per annum for foreign currency deposits.

Ukrainians were also informed where they can exchange hryvnias for euros in Germany.