NBU liberalizes issuance of forex licenses to individuals

On July 24, 2015, the [NBU] Board issued resolution No. 479 streamlining the rules governing the issuance of licenses for forex transactions to resident individuals.

It is stipulated, inter alia, that a resident individual who opened a bank account and deposited foreign currency valuables thereon while abroad, after return to the home country should get a respective foreign exchange license no later than 24 months from the date of return to Ukraine (if the duration of stay abroad lasted 183 or more days as one period); or no later than 2 months from the date of return to Ukraine (if the duration of stay abroad was shorter than 183 days as one period), the posting said.

In addition, if an individual has changed his or her non-resident status to that of resident, they should obtain a foreign exchange license within 24 months since the date of the change.

The validity period of a license has been extended from one year to three years.

In addition, the regulator has delegated all functions related to the issuance of individual licenses for carrying out foreign exchange operations to the Registration and Licensing Department, and all functions of exercising control over residents' compliance with the license conditions to the Financial Monitoring Department. Previously, these functions were performed by the Foreign Exchange Operations Control, Methodology and Licensing Department and the NBU regional offices.

As UNIAN reported earlier, a large-scale deregulation and decentralization are among major objectives of Ukrainian state reformation enabling the achievement of the main economic objectives, including an improvement in Ukraine's position in the World Bank's Doing Business ranking. Ukraine, currently being 96th in the ranking out of 189 economies, seeks to make it into the world's top 50 countries.