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No foreign money available at Kiev’s banks

US dollars are not available for purchasing at any of Kiev’s banks

© EPA/MAXIM SHIPENKOV

KIEV, February 21. /ITAR-TASS/. Tass) - US dollars are not available for purchasing at any of Kiev’s banks, as foreign cash purchases have reached a critical level in the capital city of Ukraine.

“No currency,” the Bank of Kiev’s staff told Itar-Tass. Oschadbank, PrivatBank and other finance institutions are in the same situation while the Kiev information centre of the Russian Sberbank said that “there are still some dollars left” but the bank’s central offices had stopped selling foreign cash..

The Itar-Tass correspondent witnessed a scene at a Sberbank branch next to Kiev’s central train station when people crowding at the entrance to the bank were asking the customers at the entrance it if they were about to sell dollars.

If the reply was yes, the buyers were just queuing up behind the person in an attempt to immediately buy the money back.

On Thursday, Kiev’s residents had problems with cash withdrawals as the ATM machines gave out limited sums of cash and only in 500-hryvnia banknotes.

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