During a round table in Brussels on September 27, the companies signed a statement at the initiative of the European Commission in which they pledged to help reduce the cost of transfers to Ukraine by up to 3%, the press service of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) reported on Wednesday.
According to the report, the heads of Visa, Mastercard, Wise, Extrabanca, Ria Money Transfer, Small World, TransferGo, PrivatBank, Oschadbank, Ukrgasbank, Raiffeisen Bank, PUMB, A-Bank, NovaPay, Ukrposhta, UFG PJSC signed a joint statement.
They committed to provide competitive transfer services to the Ukrainian diaspora, internally displaced persons from Ukraine and anyone who wants to support Ukrainians and transfer funds to Ukraine.
Deputy head of the NBU Oleksiy Shaban pointed out that it is possible to receive transfers in Ukraine using all available methods that were in peacetime (through international systems for transferring funds from card to card via SWIFT using the IBAN number).
He added that at the beginning of the war, most international funds transfer systems completely abolished fees for transfers to Ukraine.
In general, according to preliminary estimates of the National Bank, in January-July 2022, $7.6 billion was transferred to Ukraine, which is 5.7% less than in the same period of the previous pre-war year.
The war in Ukraine led to a decrease in transfers through official channels by about 12%. At the same time, the flow through informal channels increased by almost 3%.
According to NBU statistics, of all funds transferred to Ukraine from abroad in January-July 2022, about a quarter (24%) came through international transfer systems.
The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) plans to first settle the issue of providing the proper level of cyber defense and cybersecurity in the sphere of money transfer.
The respective initiative is contained in the draft resolution of the NBU approving the regulation on cyber defense and cybersecurity in payment and settlement systems, the text of which was posted on the regulator’s website for public discussion.
In particular, the draft resolution provides for determining the requirements for the payment market players in building an cyber defense and cybersecurity system, the procedure for detecting cyber attacks that reduce the reliability of payment and settlement systems, as well as the requirements for organizational and technical measures to ensure the protection of information and cybersecurity by the payment market players.
The regulator said that this document is based on the requirements and recommendations of national and international cybersecurity standards, as well as modern approaches to cyber defense and cybersecurity that are universally accepted in international practice.
The adoption of the draft resolution will allow minimizing the number cyber incidents in the sphere of money transfer, regulating the use of cybersecurity tools, increasing the reliability of the functioning and efficiency of payment and settlement systems, speeding up the modernization of payment systems, taking into account modern cybersecurity technologies.
Comments and proposals for the NBU draft document will be accepted until October 27.
Xoom, a subsidiary structure of the PayPal payment service, has launched a service of money transfer from the United States to Ukraine, the initiator of the group on the introduction of PayPal in Ukraine, Ilia Kenigshtein, has said.
“Xoom is a money transfer system that PayPal bought in November 2015. Earlier Xoom was able to send money to 44 countries, Ukraine was not on this list. Starting from today, Xoom allows sending money from the U.S. to 130 countries, which include Ukraine,” he wrote on his Facebook page.
According to Kenigshtein, currently only one of the system services, Cash Pickup, which allows recipients in Ukraine to take remittance in one of the banks listed on the Xoom website.
Among the partner banks are Oschadbank, PrivatBank, Pravex-Bank, Ukrgasbank, Universal Bank, VS Bank, Accordbank, Industrialbank, Kredobank, Pivdenny Bank, Credit Dnipro, Vostok, Globus, IBOX Bank, as well as Ukrainian Financial Group.
“As for the limits: you can send up to $2,999 per day, but not more than $6,000 during 30 days, or expand the limits through the form on the website, providing additional documents,” the expert said.
The group’s initiator expects that in time PayPal, the parent company, will also provide services in Ukraine.
“In fact, this is a historical moment, confirming that sooner or later PayPal will come to Ukraine,” he noted.
As reported, the volume of private money transfers to Ukraine in January-May 2018 increased by 30% compared to the same period in 2017, to $4.5 billion.
