Page 12 - UKRRptJul21

The new banking law comes as Bankova has been particularly active on the reform legislation front recently. The Rada has also just passed a bill that beefs up penalties for public servants that fail to hand in an annual electronic declaration of their assets or lie on the form.
MPs included an amendment in the new banking bill to expand the composition of the National Bank's board from six to seven members, adding to it a board member who will be responsible for non-banking financial institutions.
While the banking sector clean up has largely been completed Shevchenko told bne IntelliNews that he was now moving on to clear up the non-bank entities part of the sector – things like insurance companies and credit unions.
In addition, the MPs supported the amendment, suggesting the creation of companies and enterprises by the National Bank. As explained by MP Andriy Ivanchuk (Dovira group), the matter concerns the creation of a banknote-mint by the NBU, a special paper factory for making and printing money, as well as representative offices abroad.
The bill is intended to improve corporate governance with a special focus on making banks’ council and board more accountable, as well as beefing up the internal control and risk management system.
In keeping with BASEL III norms, the bill introduces a new capital structure (including capital buffers) that will strengthen banks ability to absorb losses, as well as additional requirements for members of banks’ council and board.
The NBU will be given the right to establish individual size of economic standards for banks depending on the riskiness of activities and the right to demand changes in the composition of the council or board of the bank, if the current composition of these bodies is not able to ensure effective management and control over the activities of the financial institution.
The bill also clarifies certain provisions of banking legislation, in particular regarding consolidated supervision of banking groups, licensing of banks, approval of the acquisition of significant participation in banks and requirements for their ownership structures.
2.5 Politics - misc
President Biden will meet with President Zelenskiy in Washington in late July, Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said on Ukraina 24 TV on Friday. “This will be an official full-fledged visit, which envisages not only the meeting with President Biden, but also many other events,” he said. “We are very carefully preparing this visit.”
Ukraine imposed sanctions on Dmytro Firtash on June 18 for allegedly selling titanium products to Russian military enterprises. Firtash became rich as a middleman for Gazprom. Today, he owns a gas distribution network and fertilizer plants in Ukraine. In 2014, he was arrested in Vienna on US charges that he led a conspiracy to win a deal in India. The US Justice Department has described Firtash as an associate of “Russian organized crime.” In Austria, he is free on $174mn in bail and is fighting extradition to the
12 UKRAINE Country Report July 2021 www.intellinews.com