The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) has decided to centralize licensing procedures and set up a new structural unit – the Licensing Department that will perform relevant functions. The NBU Board made the decision on 2 March 2017.
“The centralization of licensing procedures aims at ensuring a unified approach toward dealing with applicants and considering packages of documents received from market participants,” said NBU Deputy Governor Kateryna Rozhkova. “We are seeking to make NBU internal processes and communication with the market more transparent, clearer, more effective, and to introduce unified approaches applied by the regulator when dealing with the market participants,” she said.
The Licensing Department will be tasked with registering and licensing banks, their standalone units, approving acquisitions (increase) of qualifying holdings in banks, approving bank manager appointments, as well as granting general licenses to carry out FX operations. Previously, these functions fell within the competence of the NBU Office for Registration and Licensing.
In addition, starting from 6 April 2017, the Licensing Department will also deal with:
- issuing licenses to non-banking financial institutions to carry out domestic currency money transfers without opening accounts;
- registering payment systems, payment system participants and operators of payment infrastructure services; and
- issuing licenses to legal entities to provide cash collection services.
The NBU informs that from 6 April 2017 the relevant documents are to be submitted for consideration of the Licensing Department.
The Licensing Department will receive packages of documents, coordinate their consideration, get in contact with applicants, provide its comments regarding the submitted documents, and inform about the decisions taken. Specialized structural units will provide the Licensing Department with expert opinions as to the compliance with the requirements of legislation in specific areas.
Oleksandr Bevz has been appointed Director of Licensing Department. In February-October 2015, he headed the Division for Banks’ Shareholders Control of the Registration and Licensing Department; from January to October 2016 he was serving as Deputy Director of the mentioned Department and Head of Office for Registration and Licensing. Since October 2016, Mr. Bevz headed a standalone Office for Registration and Licensing at the NBU.