The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) is expected to keep its key policy rate unchanged at 15.5% at its December 11 meeting, as persistent inflationary risks and uncertainty over foreign financing continue to weigh on monetary policy prospects, a majority of bankers surveyed by Interfax-Ukraine said.

“Actual inflation remains significantly above the target, and uncertainty over international financing for 2025 has increased,” said Oleh Trybulkin, deputy chairman of the management board and head of risk management at A-Bank. He said that while Kyiv’s staff-level agreement with the IMF on a new Extended Fund Facility was a positive step after the October meeting, risks have intensified due to renewed attacks on energy infrastructure, rising logistics costs and geopolitical uncertainty.

Serhiy Hnezdilov, head of international markets and currency circulation at Radabank, said the regulator was unlikely to adjust borrowing costs. “We do not expect any changes… although the NBU previously considered the possibility of lowering it,” he said, adding that winter electricity shortages could also limit disinflation.

Analysts at Raiffeisen Bank also expect the benchmark to stay unchanged. Chief macroeconomic expert Serhiy Kolodiy said the December meeting is an interim one and is not accompanied by a new macroeconomic forecast, meaning policymakers usually stick to the baseline outlined at previous meetings. He noted that most members of the NBU’s Monetary Policy Committee foresee no shift in the rate, citing risks from power shortages and uncertainty over external financing in 2026.

Some bankers warned that monetary tightening remains possible. Dmytro Zamotaiev, director of retail banking at Globus Bank, said the NBU could even raise rates by 0.5 percentage points. “The intensification of energy terror is reducing production and fuelling consumer price growth. This could justify raising the key rate to 16%,” he said.

Zamotaiev added that pressure on the hryvnia persists, though the central bank is stabilising the market through active interventions and international reserves exceeding $54bn. He said attractive hryvnia deposit rates are helping to curb foreign-currency demand, which currently outstrips supply by 10–15%.

The NBU has held its key rate at 15.5% since early March 2025 across five consecutive meetings, most recently on Oct. 23, following three hikes since mid-December 2024. Prior to that, the benchmark had remained at 13% for six months after a gradual easing cycle that unwound emergency wartime rates of 25% set in 2023.