At the request of the banking community the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) has postponed the launch of the international bank account number (IBAN).
IBAN will be launched in Ukraine on 5 August 2019 (previously planned for 1 April 2019).
The reason for this is the need for banks to further develop software for remote customer service systems.
The postponement is set out in NBU Board Resolution No. 41 On Amendments to Resolution of the Board of the National Bank of Ukraine No. 162 dated 28 December 2018 dated 22 February 2019.
Starting from 5 August 2019, banks will open new accounts for their customers under the IBAN standard and change the numbers of existing bank accounts accordingly, while preserving the existing numbers for analytical accounting.
At the same time, as previously intended, IBAN will become obligatory as of 1 November 2019 for customers of all Ukrainian banks for fund transfers in the domestic and foreign currencies, including cross-border transfers. In other words, all transfers will be made using IBAN effective 1 November 2019.
In the period from 5 August 2019 through 31 October 2019, bank customers will provide in details of payment documents either the existing account number and bank code or IBAN.
As a reminder, IBAN will harmonize the Ukrainian payment landscape with the European one and contribute to the further planned upgrade of the NBU’s System of Electronic Payments. In general, the use of IBAN standard with fewer payment details is aimed to simplify drafting of payment documents.
This will allow bank customers to:
- identify the payer and the receiver of funds as well as their servicing Ukrainian bank in an easy and convenient way
- avoid mistakes in bank account details thanks to fewer details in the payment documents
- make and receive transfers faster.
Among other benefits for bank customers, the NBU intends to implement the standard for making payments using QR codes for payment market participants. QR codes containing IBAN details will simplify payment of invoices and exchange of payment information.