There is no demand for the creation of new banks: over the past five years, the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) has not received a single package of documents, Deputy Governor of the NBU Dmytro Oliynyk has said.

"The number of requests from non-bank players is also at a low level, at the same time, this year demand is higher compared to 2022," he said in an interview with Interfax-Ukraine.

Oliynyk clarified that since the beginning of this year, the National Bank has received more than two dozen applications: most from financial companies and lessors, there are also insurance companies, while last year there were only six applications.

"Half of them were rejected, the rest is still under consideration," he added.

According to the NBU deputy governor, demand for relicensing payment market participants to obtain a license to provide financial payment services has increased. Since the beginning of the year, 70 non-banking institutions have applied for such a license, and 55 of them have applied several times.

"The new laws significantly change approaches: credit unions will be able to operate on the basis of a standard or simplified license depending on the number of services, financial companies and pawnshops will have their licenses renewed, and insurers will be re-licensed. However, we do not expect history to repeat itself as with payment market participants," Oliynyk noted.

He pointed out that during the spring relicensing of financial companies that had a license to transfer funds, there was no delay on the part of the regulator, the requirements for confirming the financial position were even simplified and changes were initiated to the legislation to extend the deadlines.

"However, some major players hoped for a formal approach from the National Bank. When you can see all the companies and their approaches, this becomes obvious. For some reason, a company from front-line Zaporizhia for accepting utility payments prepared a package of documents of a higher quality than one of the market leaders. Ultimately, companies that wanted to stay on the market and prepared all the documents accordingly were able to obtain licenses," Oliynyk said.

The deputy governor of the NBU emphasized that the tightening of the regulator's requirements primarily aims to destroy the "gray" market for trading licenses on the Internet and the darknet.

"With the new requirements, along with capital requirements and disclosure of ownership structures, the market will finally become transparent," he said.