NBU
The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) has tightened a procedure for hryvnia transfers abroad.
Transfer of hryvnia funds to correspondent accounts of non-resident banks on behalf of resident customers will be carried out not earlier than on the fourth business day after a bank enters information about the proposed transaction into the register and submits such register to the NBU, according to a posting on the NBU website with reference to resolution No. 593, which takes effect on September 10.
According to the NBU, the provision applies to transactions conducted under the contracts concluded between residents and non-residents. For such transactions, a bank will pre-transfer funds to a separate analytical account. The regulator said such a procedure is now applied to similar transactions in foreign currency.
At the same time, the NBU prohibited to conduct such transactions when hryvnia funds have been attracted by resident customers in the form of a loan, adding that a similar requirement is applicable to transactions on foreign currency purchase.
As reported earlier, yesterday, September 9, the NBU said it would phase out restrictions on foreign exchange market, and in the middle of next year it plans to introduce a new market-oriented system of monetary regulation.
As UNIAN reported earlier, after the NBU had switched from the fixed exchange rate in 2014 to the flexible system of setting the hryvnia's currency market rate (including two months in 2015), the hryvnia lost its value against the benchmark U.S. dollar by 3.8 times and hit a historic new low of UAH 30.01 per U.S. dollar.
After the introduction of the NBU restrictions and the disbursement of the first tranche by the International Monetary Fund under a new cooperation program with Ukraine, the hryvnia strengthened in less than two weeks with the exchange rate fluctuating within a range of UAH 21-23 per U.S. dollar in the past five months.
According to the Memorandum of Economic and Financial Policies of July 21, 2015 between Ukraine and the International Monetary Fund, the complete abolition of restrictions on the foreign exchange market is possible after successful completion of the partial restructuring of the public debt, recapitalization of banks by the results of stress tests in 2014 and full transition of Naftogaz Ukrainy to currency purchases directly on the interbank market, but not from the international reserves.