Ukraine central bank allows FCY accounts abroad for individuals

The Council of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) announced on Feb. 23 it has lifted restrictions on citizens keeping foreign currency accounts abroad. Previously, individuals had to get permission from the NBU to open accounts abroad. At the same time, the NBU is maintaining its licenses for wiring funds from Ukraine to those accounts.

Alexander Paraschiy: The main motivation behind the NBU lifting licensing for foreign accounts abroad was to legalize the operations of individual micro-exporters and improve their activity. Thousands of Ukrainian entrepreneurs strive to sell their commodities or services through Amazon, Alibaba or similar platforms. However, such sales are possible only if an individual has a foreign bank account or access to payment systems like Paypal. Both options have not been available to Ukrainians, who had to run high transaction costs to receive their proceeds and simply gave up, in many cases. The new access to external markets should lead to stronger export proceeds in the mid-term, as well as tax revenue for the government.