MACROPRUDENTIAL STRESS TESTING OF UKRAINIAN BANKS UNDER WARTIME SHOCKS AND RISING SYSTEMIC RISKS

Abstract

The article substantiates the macroprudential role of stress testing Ukrainian banks under the conditions of prolonged war, high uncertainty and rising systemic risks. The research argues that in a wartime economy stress testing should not be reduced to a technical verification of individual banks’ capital adequacy. Its broader function is to identify the channels through which shocks are transmitted between credit, interest rate, foreign exchange, operational and sovereign-related risks. The empirical basis of the article includes official materials of the National Bank of Ukraine on banks’ resilience assessments in 2023–2026, the 2025 stress-testing methodology, the results of the 2025 resilience assessment and the approved framework for the 2026 exercise. The paper shows that Ukraine’s banking supervision has moved from a simplified post-shock diagnostic format in 2023, based mainly on asset quality review and baseline projections, to a more comprehensive scenario-based stress-testing framework with an adverse macroeconomic scenario. According to the 2025 resilience assessment, 21 banks that covered more than 90% of banking system assets were stress-tested, while nine banks accounting for 18% of sector assets were required to achieve higher capital adequacy levels under the adverse scenario. The weighted-average regulatory capital adequacy ratio remained above the minimum requirement under both baseline and adverse scenarios. The article proposes an original interpretation of macroprudential stress testing as an institutional mechanism that transforms risk information into prudential decisions, capitalization programs and adjustments in banks’ behavior. Particular attention is paid to the need to adapt stress testing to wartime shock persistence, infrastructure damage, borrower heterogeneity, interest-rate repricing, exchange-rate uncertainty and operational losses. The scientific contribution lies in the conceptual distinction between solvency testing, resilience assessment and macroprudential stress diagnostics of systemic risk transmission. The article concludes that stress testing should become a permanent element of Ukraine’s financial stability architecture and a tool for aligning banking resilience with the needs of economic recovery.