The former owners of Ukraine's PrivatBank, oligarchs Ihor Kolomoisky and Hennady Boholyubov, were responsible for more than UAH16bn (€561mn) in fraudulent transactions performed the "last night" before the lender's nationalisation last December, National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) governor Valeriya Gontareva alleged on April 10.

In December, the government announced the nationalisation of PrivatBank after it failed to fulfill a three-year recapitalisation plan. The bank was found to have a UAH148bn (€5.1bn) hole in its balance sheet as of early December, at the time said to be almost entirely due to related party financing. Privatbank's owners have always denied any wrongdoing.

Gontareva also told a news briefing that the post-nationalisation audit of the bank established that not 97%, but 100% of the corporate portfolio was issued to related parties. "The necessity to additionally capitalise is more and the state would have to pay more money for the management of the bank by this team of oligarchs and managers," Interfax news agency quoted Gontareva as saying.

To cover the capital shortfall the Ukrainian government injected capital of UAH117bn (€4.1bn) and bailed-in PrivatBank's non-deposit unsecured creditors for the amount of UAH29.4bn ($1.1bn), including bondholders for the amount of $595mn.

Meanwhile, NBU deputy governor Kateryna Rozhkova said the results of PrivatBank's audit will be published late April or early May. "As for the additional capitalisation, we are cooperating with the finance ministry and PrivatBank in drafting the programme," she underlined.