REUTERS
The National Bank says it will pursue its forex liberalization policies.
The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) says the volumes of buying and selling currency online by Ukrainians were almost equal last year – at US$1 billion.
The regulator on February 7, 2019, allowed online currency purchases by individuals, which greatly simplified the life of Ukrainians, eliminating the need to go to bank cash desks or currency exchange booths to buy foreign currency, the NBU's press service wrote on Facebook on January 9.
At the same time, the liberalization did not lead to pressure on the forex market since about 7% of cash market transactions switched to online banking platforms.
The National Bank says it will pursue its forex liberalization policies. In particular, after the implementation of the "split" law, which provides for the liquidation of National Commission on the Financial Services Market State Regulation and the distribution of its functions between the National Bank and the National Securities and Stock Market Commission, the NBU will allow transferring foreign currency online not only to banks, but also to non-banking financial institutions, which will be supervised by the NBU from mid-2020.
Read alsoNBU allows further key rate cuts to 8% amid favorable macroeconomic conditions
As UNIAN reported earlier, in July 2016, the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine's parliament, passed a draft "split" law on the consolidation of state regulation of financial services markets. The bill was passed as a whole by the new composition of the parliament only in three years. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky enacted the bill into law in October 2019.