Draft law on fulfilment of requirements for joining the SEPA

On 18 April 2025, the Ministry of Finance announced that the Cabinet of Ministers had approved the draft law “On Amendments to Certain Legislative Acts of Ukraine to Ensure Compliance with the Laws of the European Union and the Relevant Criteria Established by the European Payments Council for the Purpose of Ukraine’s Accession to the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA)”, which aims to bring Ukrainian financial monitoring legislation in line with the laws of the European Union.

The establishment of a Register of Accounts

Among other things, this Draft Law provides for the establishment of a Register of Accounts and Individual Bank Safes of Individuals, which will be administered by the State Tax Service and will contain the following information:

• date of opening/closing a bank account, securities account, payment account, other account/e-wallet
• type and number of the account containing the IBAN number;
• full name of the account holder, individual safe deposit box;
• information about the institution where the account or safe deposit box is opened;
• number and date of the agreement on the provision of an individual bank safe (date of commencement and validity, date of termination of the agreement, data on persons who have access to an individual bank safe under this agreement).

At the same time, the Register will not include information on the movement and balances of funds on accounts, as well as the contents of the safe deposit box.

The innovations

The Draft Law also provides for the following innovations:

• creation of the Register of Ultimate Beneficial Owners of Trusts or other similar legal entities, also administered by the State Tax Service;
• improvement of the procedure for verification of information on the ultimate beneficial owners of legal entities and the mechanism for applying penalties for failure to submit, late submission, or submission of knowingly false information on the ultimate beneficial owner of a legal entity to the Unified State Register;
• introduction of sanctions for violation of the requirements of the financial monitoring legislation by the primary financial monitoring entities, which will comply with the EU requirements on prevention of money laundering and terrorist financing;
• creation of a mechanism for whistleblowers in the field of financial monitoring and their protection;
• extension of the list of specially designated subjects of primary financial monitoring by adding to the list of persons obliged to report suspicious transactions trustees of trusts and traders in cultural property conducting transactions through “free ports” if the amount exceeds UAH 400,000;
• prevention of criminals or their accomplices from managing and/or controlling specially designated primary financial monitoring entities.

The introduction of such innovations is a prerequisite for the submission of an official application for Ukraine’s accession to the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA).

Thus, Ukraine’s accession to SEPA will allow individuals and businesses to quickly make transfers in euros between European countries, without additional fees and in accordance with clearly established rules.