The American Chamber of Commerce in Ukraine welcomes steps of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) aimed at currency market liberalization and foreign currency control relaxation, namely the recent adoption of the NBU Resolution #3 “On Amendments to Certain Regulatory Documents of the National Bank of Ukraine” dated January 15, 2021. By adopting this Resolution, the NBU has removed the bans on forward forex sales by corporate clients. These transactions have previously been made only to hedge risks of exchange rate changes that affect export and import transactions, loan agreement transactions, and purchases of Ukrainian domestic government debt securities by non-resident legal entities.
Also, the NBU has lifted the ban on transactions by individuals to make forward FX purchases and sales for hryvnias, to buy and sell foreign currency and investment metals on margin trading terms, and to make FX payments when buying FX government securities. Besides, the NBU has allowed banks and nonbank financial institutions to use cashless hryvnias to make FX purchases from individuals through self-service terminals and approved a procedure for making these transactions. The easing measures will help to expand the FX-risk-hedging capabilities of businesses and individuals as well as develop new services that will be provided by authorized currency exchange institutions.
For over 5 years, AmCham Ukraine has been actively advocating for currency market liberalization through the constant dialog with the leadership of responsible state authorities and expressing the position of the business community regarding the above issues. In general, the NBU has canceled over 40 FX market restrictions since 2019. At the same time, there are still a number of steps to be taken on the way to full liberalization of the currency market and easing the administrative restrictions imposed in 2014-2015. AmCham Ukraine will take every single effort to achieve the mentioned steps and ensure their effective implementation.
