On 14 December 2012, the Board of the National Bank of Ukraine adopted Resolution No. 531 on Amendments to Some Regulations of the National Bank of Ukraine (hereinafter referred to as Resolution No. 531) registered with the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine on 8 January 2013 under No. 78/22610.
The need to further bring some NBU regulations into line with the mandatory requirement to sell foreign exchange earnings received by residents from the sale of goods under external contracts and foreign exchange earnings in favor of individuals (residents and non-residents) on the interbank foreign exchange market of Ukraine called for the adoption of Resolution No. 531.
In particular, Resolution 531 has specified the mechanism for a mandatory sale of foreign exchange earnings entered into accounts of residents (legal entities or individuals – economic entities) opened outside Ukraine based on the individual license for placing foreign exchange valuables on accounts opened outside Ukraine. It is envisaged that a license holder is required to transfer the foreign exchange amount subject to the mandatory sale to the authorized bank or sell the same amount of foreign exchange from his own account opened with the authorized bank, which is indicated in the license.
Resolution No. 531 provides for the possibility that individuals (residents and non-residents) will purchase foreign exchange in order to return it if an excessive amount of foreign exchange has been mistakenly received by individuals and sold by the authorized banks in accordance with the mandatory requirements to sell foreign exchange earnings coming from abroad in favor of individuals.
By virtue of this Resolution the National Bank of Ukraine has lifted restriction on the marginal amount of foreign exchange that resident individuals can transfer outside Ukraine based on the individual license for placing foreign exchange valuables on accounts outside Ukraine issued by the National Bank of Ukraine.
Resident individuals can transfer foreign exchange to these accounts without any restrictions based on the individual license.
In addition, the procedure for recording transactions related to the transfer of foreign exchange carried out by individuals at the banking institutions has been improved. Thus, the National Bank of Ukraine has cancelled the requirement obliging banks to keep log books in which they record transfers of foreign exchange outside Ukraine and payments of these transfers, as well as the log book in which they record transfers in domestic currency within Ukraine carried out on the instruction of non-resident individuals and payments related to these transfers as the above transactions are recorded electronically by means of software package “Bank's business day (BBD)”.
Resolution No. 531 shall take effect from 25 January 2013, from the date of its publication in the periodical of regulatory and legal acts "Ofitsiinyi Visnyk Ukrainy" (the Official Herald of Ukraine).