KIEV, Sept. 22 ??“ The arrival of foreign capital in the bank system of Ukraine will stimulate the consolidation of small banks, according to Volodymyr Mischenko, director of the National Bank of Ukraine??™s research center.

"The arrival of large [amounts of] foreign capital will lead to the merger of certain small banks, [due to] the increase in competition," he said at an annual national forum on mergers in Ukraine which opened in Kiev on Thursday.