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The NBU operationalised its Open Banking framework in 2025, requiring account-servicing PSPs (banks) to open standardised APIs to authorised third-party providers, with authorisation for non-financial PSPs governed by a dedicated NBU procedure.
Outlook
The AIS/PIS authorisation track is still young, and T1 corroboration of the corrected 1 December 2022 enforcement date remains outstanding; both bear watching as the non-bank PSP framework matures toward EU PSD2-equivalent standards.
Licensing, Authorisation & Market Access
The National Bank of Ukraine made two distinct market-access moves this cycle. First, it expanded foreign-exchange transaction limits for users of non-bank payment services, allowing personal payments abroad of up to UAH 200,000 per month through personal e-money instruments, and expanded the rules governing hryvnia account crediting from non-resident cards. This amends Resolution No. 43 of 31 March 2023 and directly increases the cross-border payment capacity available to customers of non-bank payment service providers, a liberalising move for the non-bank segment of the market. Second, the NBU opened applications, from 26 June 2026, for a new Financial Inclusion Bank limited banking licence category. This licence is available both to entirely new institutions seeking to enter the market and to existing institutions via reissuance of an existing bank licence, giving non-bank payment providers and smaller financial entities a defined pathway toward a limited banking status without needing to meet the full requirements of a conventional banking licence.
In parallel, the NBU clarified procedural mechanics through Board Resolution No. 69 of 24 June 2026, which sets out the procedure for changing the scope of an existing financial or payment-services licence and for its revocation. This is a procedural clarification rather than a substantive policy shift, but it is directly relevant to any payment institution considering a licence-scope amendment, or facing the prospect of licence revocation, since it defines the steps the regulator will follow in either case.
Taken together, the FX-limit expansion and the Financial Inclusion Bank licence category point toward a liberalising trajectory in Ukraine's market-access regime for non-bank payment institutions, widening both what licensed non-bank providers' customers can do and what institutional pathways exist for non-bank providers themselves to move toward limited banking status.
Outlook
The key indicator to watch is uptake of the Financial Inclusion Bank licence category: whether existing non-bank payment institutions pursue reissuance toward this limited banking status will show whether the pathway is being used as intended. Continued monitoring of actual usage of the expanded UAH 200,000 monthly cross-border payment allowance will also indicate whether this liberalisation has practical effect on customer behaviour or remains principally a change in regulatory ceiling.
3 earlier distinct update(s)
Licensing, Authorisation & Market Access
Ukraine's open-banking regime became operational during the current standing period, with the National Bank of Ukraine's regulatory package establishing account-information services and payment-initiation services on standardised APIs effective since 1 August 2025. This gives Ukraine a functioning open-banking market-access architecture that mirrors PSD2's structural approach without Ukraine being an EU member, indicating the regulatory convergence is a deliberate policy choice rather than a legal obligation flowing from accession status.
Building on this, the NBU adopted Resolution No. 70, approved 30 June 2026 and effective 1 July 2026, introducing third-party risk-management requirements applicable to banks, payment institutions, and insurers alike, explicitly drawing on Basel Committee, PSD2, and Solvency II approaches. The rule applies across both bank and non-bank payment institution license types, meaning market-access considerations for a prospective payment institution now include a third-party risk-management compliance obligation that did not previously exist in this form. This is a market-access-relevant development because it adds a new operational condition to the authorisation landscape for any bank or payment institution relying on third-party service providers, a common feature of open-banking-enabled business models.
Taken together, these two developments describe an authorisation environment that is actively tightening its conduct expectations around third-party reliance at the same time it is opening new account-access rails through open banking, a combination that increases the compliance surface for new entrants even as it expands the products they can build.
Outlook
The open-banking and third-party risk-management framework should be expected to continue deepening as the NBU works through further Basel/PSD2/Solvency II-derived requirements; no specific forward date for additional market-access rule changes was sourced this cycle, but the trajectory established by these two instruments points toward continued tightening.
Licensing, Authorisation & Market Access
Ukraine's licensing and market-access framework moved on three fronts this cycle, all originating from the National Bank of Ukraine. First, since 26 June 2026 entities have been able to apply for a new Financial Inclusion Bank, or FIB, licence class, accompanied by updated authorisation requirements spanning financial companies, pawnshops and payment service providers. This is a confirmed, Tier-1-sourced development that expands the set of licence types available to market entrants and signals continued build-out of the non-bank licensing perimeter alongside the traditional banking-licence track. Second, and effective from 1 July 2026, new third-party risk-management requirements entered into force, obliging regulated entities to integrate third-party risk into their broader risk-management, operational-resilience and business-continuity frameworks, including planning for exit and supplier-replacement scenarios. This applies across both bank and non-bank licensees, carrying the bank-PSP versus non-bank-PI/EMI distinction directly into scope: both categories of authorised entity must now demonstrate third-party risk governance, though the practical compliance burden will differ by institution type and existing outsourcing footprint.
Third, the NBU's FX liberalisation programme continues on a phased basis, with a further stage announced from 14 January 2026 introducing a more granular, risk-based framework for currency transactions. Banks and payment service providers retain, and in some respects gain, an enhanced gatekeeper role, being required to perform due diligence and verify the economic purpose behind cross-border transactions even as headline restrictions ease for underlying counterparties. Taken together, these three developments describe a licensing and market-access environment that is liberalising in terms of who can enter and what currency operations they can conduct, while simultaneously raising the governance and due-diligence bar for those already licensed. This is a materially active cycle for W1a, reflecting genuine regulatory movement rather than routine administrative update.
Outlook
The FIB licence class is new enough that its practical uptake and any subsequent implementing guidance are worth tracking in the coming cycle, as is whether the third-party risk-management requirements generate visible enforcement activity once the compliance grace period, if any, elapses. The FX liberalisation track should also be watched for its next phase, given the NBU's demonstrated pattern of incremental, staged announcements through 2026.
Licensing, Authorisation & Market Access
Ukraine's Open Banking regime, established under National Bank of Ukraine Board Resolution No. 80 of 25 July 2025 and operational since 1 August 2025, transposes PSD2 account-information-service and payment-initiation-service concepts into national regulation, per confirmed NBU resolution text corroborated by the Verkhovna Rada's legal database and by independent legal commentary describing the model as largely based on the EU's Second Payment Services Directive 2015/2366. This is a national-federal-layer regime binding both bank and non-bank participants, consistent with the bank-PSP versus non-bank-PI/EMI distinction this module tracks: the regulation applies its account-information and payment-initiation obligations regardless of whether the servicing institution is a licensed bank or a non-bank payment institution.
The material development this cycle is a confirmed refinement: NBU Board Resolution No. 32, approved 31 March 2026 and effective 3 April 2026, reduced the set of mandatory fields a Payment Initiation Service Provider must populate in a payment instruction, reassigning the recipient-PSP-name field to the Account Servicing Payment Service Provider. Trade press (The Paypers) independently corroborates the substance of this change, and the underlying NBU resolution itself, together with the Verkhovna Rada legal database's consolidated-text tracking, confirms the amendment took legal effect on 3 April 2026. The net effect described in the evidence is reduced procedural friction for PISPs initiating payments, without a corresponding reduction in the overall completeness of payment-instruction data — the burden is redistributed toward the Account Servicing PSP rather than removed.
This is the second confirmed refinement to Regulation No. 80 since its 2025 launch, indicating that Ukraine's open-banking regime is under active regulatory maintenance less than a year after going live, a pattern consistent with a functioning institutional oversight capacity applying PSD2-style regulation to both bank and non-bank participants under continuing wartime conditions.
Outlook
No further amendment to Regulation No. 80 or its implementing resolutions was signalled in the regulatory-horizon register this cycle. The trajectory to watch is whether the NBU continues this pattern of incremental refinement — as it has twice now within roughly nine months of the regime's launch — which would further indicate institutional capacity to run and adjust an open-banking regime rather than treat it as a fixed, one-time transposition.
Sources and findings (6)
- T1https://www.rada.gov.ua/en/news/News/211327.htmlretrieved
- T1https://bank.gov.ua/en/payments/sepretrieved
- T3https://vlolawfirm.com/tpost/ukraine-banking-financeretrieved
- T2https://www.wolftheiss.com/insights/open-banking-in-ukraine-ais-pis-providers-and-their-regulatory-status/retrieved
- T2https://www.deloitte.com/ua/en/services/tax/perspectives/tax-and-legal-alert-2023-01-20.htmlretrieved
- T3https://vlolawfirm.com/tpost/ukraine-banking-financeretrieved