Ukraine's Largest Savings Bank Stops Using Hryvnias to Buy Bitcoin

Time：2022-03-18 Source： 1589 views Trending Copy share

Despite Ukraine’s progress in crypto regulation, locals are reportedly unable to buy bitcoin using their bank accounts with PrivatBank.

The Ukrainian government has moved to legalize bitcoin amid ongoing attacks by the Russian military, but some of the largest local banks have reportedly banned their customers from buying BTC using Ukraine’s national currency.

Ukraine’s largest commercial bank, PrivatBank, has temporarily restricted its customers from using the Ukrainian currency hryvnia (UAH) to buy bitcoin, industry media Forklog reported on Thursday.

Citing a PrivatBank spokesman, the report noted that PrivatBank’s latest restrictions were in line with the order of the National Bank of Ukraine. The restrictions will reportedly apply during the country's current martial law.

The announcement comes shortly after Binance’s Ukraine arm reported on PrivatBank’s cryptocurrency restrictions on Wednesday.

“We would like to inform you that from March 2022, PrivatBank will not support UAH business for all crypto exchanges, without exception,” Binance Ukraine announced in a Facebook post.

Binance also advised its customers to use its peer-to-peer (P2P) trading service, noting that other banks could make similar decisions at any time.

According to the bank's official website, during the martial law period, PrivatBank has taken several measures to maintain financial stability by increasing withdrawal limits. PrivatBank did not respond to Cointelegraph's request for comment.

The earliest reports of PrivatBank’s crypto-related restrictions came in late February, with some users saying the bank was blocking user accounts associated with P2P crypto exchanges such as LocalBitcoins.

On Wednesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky signed a law creating a legal framework for operating regulated crypto markets in the country. The Ukrainian government is actively working to adopt the regulations, and the Ukrainian parliament passed the legislation in a second instance in mid-February.

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