The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) is considering the issue of empowering non-bank financial institutions to issue electronic money, the press service of the regulator wrote on the NBU's Facebook page.

"Ukraine is working on the harmonization of legislation in the payment systems area with European practices. At present, the NBU is discussing the issue of empowering non-bank financial institutions to issue electronic money," the central bank said.

The press service said that requirements to the charter capital, equity capital and a mechanism for protecting funds received in exchange to electronic money must be established for non-bank financial institutions that will issue electronic money and this meets the recommendations of EU Directive 110.

The central bank said that the directive says that along with banks other financial institutions can issue electronic money if they license their operations and if they hold the initial capital of not less than EUR 350,000.