NBU publishes rating of popular money transfer services in Ukraine

The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) has published a rating of popular money transfer services in Ukraine in the first half of 2019.

The Forpost service run by Nova Poshta, a local courier delivery service, and the transfer of funds by post provided by Ukrposhta, the national postal operator, accounted for almost 68.2% of all domestic remittances, the NBU said.

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The volume of transfers within Ukraine through money transfer systems in the first half of the year increased by 33.5% compared to the same period of the previous year, to UAH 93.280 billion, which is equivalent to US$3.465 billion.

In terms of cross-border remittances, such systems created by U.S. residents as Western Union, MoneyGram, RIA hold the lead. They accounted for 92% of transfers to Ukraine and 97% from Ukraine in the first half of 2019.

Since the beginning of the year, most of incoming transfers have originated from the United States and Italy, accounting for 15% and 14%, respectively, the NBU said. Poland was third with 11%, Russia ranked fourth with 9%, and Israel came fifth with 8%. However, Russia accounted for 36% of money remittances from Ukraine, which made it rank first. It was followed by Georgia (9%), Azerbaijan (8%), while China and Uzbekistan shared the fourth place with 4% each. Other 181 countries accounted for 39%.

As of July 1, 2019, there were 37 money remittance systems operating in Ukraine. Thirty of them were created by residents, while seven were foreign ones.

Some UAH 93.28 billion, or US$3.465 billion in the equivalent, which is 73.23% of the total sum of money remittances, was wired inside Ukraine, while US$1.099 billion in the equivalent (23.23% of total remittances) arrived in Ukraine and US$168 million in the equivalent (3.54%) left Ukraine.