Non-resident individuals will be able to buy Ukrainian government bonds with maturities from three months to three years on the online government bond trading platform ICU Trade, ICU Financial Group has announced.
“At present, non-residents can register remotely with a broker and buy and sell domestic government bonds in the same way as Ukrainian citizens do now,” the group said in a press release on Monday.
It is specified that residents of Russia and Belarus will be denied access to the service.
“The purchase and storage of securities is free of charge. Yields for non-residents will be the same as for domestic clients. There are no income taxes on government bonds in Ukraine,” the statement said.
The company clarified to Interfax-Ukraine that non-residents already have the opportunity to repatriate foreign currency funds invested in government bonds.
ICU recalled that numerous requests from foreign citizens to buy Ukrainian government bonds began to arrive after the launch of trading at the beginning of the full-scale invasion.
According to the company, at that time there was no such opportunity in Ukraine due to the lack of the regulatory framework and technical solutions necessary for these operations, which have been found today thanks to the joint work of market participants.
“We consider this project to be a volunteer project. It is costly and we do not make money on it, but we consider it fundamentally important to help the country. We are grateful to the NBU, the NSSMC, and the Ministry of Finance of Ukraine for their joint efforts, which made it possible to provide such services to foreign investors at the technological and regulatory level,” the company said in a press release.
According to the ICU, there is already a small queue of citizens of the United States, Israel, Poland, Germany, the United Kingdom, Australia, and Canada who want to buy Ukrainian bonds.
“These are both representatives of the diasporas and foreigners not connected with Ukraine who share the values of our country. We will work to increase the number of such investors in Ukraine,” emphasized Konstantin Stetsenko, co-founder of ICU Group.
The company noted that the registration of investors from some countries may take longer due to differences in the legal framework and the peculiarities of the work of mobile operators in different countries, and therefore asked to “treat such cases with understanding” and said that it would help each client to formalize everything properly.
ICU Group is an independent financial group that provides brokerage, asset management and private equity services. The group is also engaged in venture capital and fintech investments. ICU focuses on emerging markets around the world. The group manages assets of more than $500 million. According to the group, it has been the largest broker of government bonds in Ukraine for more than 15 years.
ICU is co-owned by Makar Paseniuk and Konstantin Stetsenko.
According to the NBU, as of September 18, non-resident legal entities held UAH 47.85 billion worth of government bonds, while resident individuals held UAH 46.14 billion, with a total volume of government bonds in circulation of UAH 1 trillion 266.65 billion.
