On 1 April 2023, the National Bank of Ukraine will transit to the new generation of the System of Electronic Payments of the NBU (hereinafter referred to as “SEP”) that will operate based on the international standard ISO 20022 and in the 24/7 mode.
“Before the full-scale war the regulator intended to transit to the new standard as of 20 August 2022. Considering the objective reasons and martial law, the NBU postpones the transition to the new-generation SEP, so that the system participants have more time to finalize their automated systems and rearrange business processes,” noted Oleksii Shaban, Deputy Governor of the NBU. “With the new-generation SEP banks and businesses will have new capacities to advance payment security and promote competition in the payment market.”
Furthermore, transiting to ISO 20022 along with introduction of IBAN creates foundation for Ukraine to join the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) and implement the instant payment service in Ukraine.
To make the necessary adjustment for transiting to the new-generation SEP, Ukrainian banks, the State Treasury Service of Ukraine, and the National Depository of Ukraine are obligated before 1 April 2023:
- to amend the rules for operating their automation systems, generating daily balance sheets and other reports
- to ensure sufficient bandwidth limit of communication channels for safe and quick information sharing in SEP.
Respectively, as of 1 April 2023 all interbank payments will be transacted only in the new-generation SEP.
These provisions are stipulated in NBU Board Resolution No. 180 On Amendments to NBU Board Resolution No. 93 dated 16 September 2022 dated 15 August 2022.
The international standard ISO 20022 is the universal communication for various automated systems of the financial and trade markets participants globally. The standard is the foundation for operation of European payment systems.
The transferring process of the Ukrainian payment infrastructure to ISO 20022 was launched back in 2016. Among other things, on 23 May 2016 the NBU signed the ISO 20022 Harmonisation Charter.