NBU Review: PayPal, Bitcoin to appear on market soon, says analyst

Last week, the National Bank of Ukraine held a conference to consider the ways of "[improving] the performance of international payment systems in Ukraine" along with lessening of regulatory constraints for new market entrants.

The meeting, which saw representatives from the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU), international payment firms, banking associations and Ukrainian banks, underscored the need of revising the legal acts that regulate such activities.

"The attendees welcomed the possible coming of new players to Ukraine's payment systems market and noted that the procedure of registration of payment systems, their members and payment infrastructure service operators is governed by the National Bank's applicable regulations. Therefore, in order to enable new participants to operate on this market, the relevant norms and regulations of the National Bank require amendment", The NBU said in a release.

Vladyslav Rashkovan, NBU Deputy Governor, said the central bank has formed a working group consisting of representatives of the NBU, professional civic associations, and Deloitte and Baker & McKenzie, to identify the difficulties faced by international online payment systems and "e-money" issuers when offering services in the country.

"The working group's findings will help improve the relevant regulatory acts of the National Bank and create proper conditions for successful performance of international payment systems in Ukraine," further said Rashkovan.

Alexander Karpov, the director of the Ukrainian Interbank Payment Systems Member Association EMA, suggested that both PayPal and Bitcoin would soon appear on the Ukrainian market.

"The National Bank will ask PayPal to add Ukrainian hryvniya [to their currency list] so that they could work with all of the country's online shops. [...] We conducted 15 conferences on banking innovation and bitcoin was made as a proposal to the National Bank to cooperate in the national system of electronic payment initiative", Karpov told local media outlet NewsRadio.com.ua. "I think that in the near future - in two or three months, possibly the end of the year - we can expect considerable and interesting innovation from the Ukrainian market," he added.