Responsibilities for supervision over a number of financial intermediaries will be reassigned from the National Commission for State Regulation of Financial Services Markets to the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) and the National Securities and Stock Market Commission and should be fully implemented by December 2017.

This is stated in the memorandum between the authorities of Ukraine and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which was posted on the Fund's website on Tuesday.

The relevant legislation was adopted by parliament in first reading in July 2016. The IMF is working to ensure that this legislation is adopted in second reading by end-March 2017 and fully implemented by end-December 2017.

According to the memorandum, the NBU will become responsible for the regulation and supervision of insurance and leasing companies, credit unions, credit bureaus and other non-bank lenders, pawnshops and other financial companies and the National Securities and Stock Market Commission for private pension funds, issuers of mortgage certificates, funds for construction financing and real estate funds.

The document also says that to improve the functioning of financial markets, enhance transparency and the quality of issuer disclosures, and to reduce the scope for corruption and fraud, we will adopt a new Audit Law and a revised Accounting Law based on EU standards. These laws, which have been developed with assistance from the EU and the World Bank, will bring Ukraine's accounting framework broadly in line with the EU Accounting Directive and establish a new oversight structure for the audit profession, while safeguarding the NBU's and the National Securities and Stock Market Commission's ability to set additional standards for auditors of banks and other regulated entities (professional market participants and issuers) in a transparent manner. These laws will be adopted by end-July 2017.