The banks count on the directors from the outside

Ukrgasbank has appointed two independent members of the Supervisory Board at once.

Ukrainian banks experience the new stage of development. Today most of them count on transparency of their activity and improvement of corporate management of the bank.

International Finance Corporation (IFC) realizes the project «Corporate Management in the Banking Sector of Ukraine». According to the project several banks at once decided to take an unexampled step – to appoint independent members to their Supervisory Boards.

Independent member (Director) of the Supervisory Board is still rarity for Ukraine. Along with huge number of financial institutions only one third of them have one or several independent directors. However, Ukrgasbank was among the first ones, who appointed independent members to the membership of the Supervisory Board. And Ukrgasbank understands all advantages of such step very well.

Firstly, such director has no relation to big shareholders of the bank and is not a representative of the government. Therefore, his vision of carrying out the business will be much more real, than of those directors, who are representatives of institution owners in the management.

Secondly, thanks to a fresher look at the bank, an independent member of the Supervisory Board may make valuable constructive contribution into its work. Therefore, in the management of Ukrgasbank there are two such members at once: former head of Ireland Mortgage Bank, John Smith and former Board member of EBRD Yuriy Poluneyev.
- First of all, we talk about increase of capitalization of Ukrainian banking system – said an independent member of the Supervisory Board of Ukrgasbank Yuriy Poluneyev during the specialized Round table. – Today it is already an axiom: modern corporate management increases the value of any company, increases the value of the business. No wonder that Ukrainian banks think about it more and more. This leads to improvement of bank management, that is, increase of the profit and in the long run to more qualified and effective client servicing.

According to the words of the banker, presence of an independent director in the bank increases trust in the company.
 – In such public business capital serves as the reputation, - added Yuriy Poluneyev. – Presence of an independent director is an important element of public control, which helps to make the banking services meet the public demand.

12.01.2007