The National Bank of Ukraine has introduced new models of record-keeping of nonresidents’ securities and expanded the options for using a link with the international central securities depository. The respective changes will allow to simplify the access by nonresidents to domestic government bonds, in particular to war bonds, and contribute to launching new services for selling government securities.
The NBU has revised the Regulation On Depository and Clearing Activity and Settlement of Securities Transactions by the National Bank of Ukraine (hereinafter – the Regulation), by regulating in particular:
- the possibility to open in the depository accounting system of the NBU Depository aggregated accounts for record-keeping securities owned by nonresidents. This has been done to simplify the automation process of opening securities accounts and processing nonresidents’ transactions with domestic government debt securities
- the procedure for record-keeping of rights owned by investment firms and their clients
- termination of record-keeping and servicing the circulation of municipal bonds in the depository accounting system of the NBU Depository.
Moreover, the NBU Depository has added an option to service several identical aggregated securities accounts of one depositary institution. This will enable the investment firms and their clients to optimize the purchase and sale of domestic government debt securities and help attract the FinTech companies to the market.
In addition, the NBU Depository actively cooperates with the international central securities depository Clearstream Banking S.A. (hereinafter – Clearstream) to expand the range of services accessible through the link. In particular, Clearstream has lifted the restriction for Ukrainian residents to execute transactions with domestic government debt securities within its system. The measure will allow to increase the number of nonresident investors participating in the secondary market for government securities of Ukraine.
The amendments to the Regulation were approved by NBU Board Resolution No. 79 On Approval of Amendments to the Regulation On Depository and Clearing Activity and Settlement of Securities Transactions by the National Bank of Ukraine dated 21 April 2022 (UKR). The document enters into effect on 23 April 2022, except for some paragraphs coming into force on 25 April 2022.