The implementation of the Prostir National Payment System (NPS), whose market share should reach 30% by 2020, can be integrated with blockchain technology. A national provider is to be the contractor for the project. Experts previously suggested that the regulator will issue electronic money through blockchain for alternative card payments, but there has been no further official explanation by the regulator. Future, magazine about fintech in Ukraine and in the world, has now received clarification from the National Bank of Ukraine on this issue. As announced by the press service of the NBU, the National Bank of Ukraine, as other central banks around the world, is considering the possibility of using blockchain technology or its analogues. The start of a pilot project is planned for early 2017, and the service provider for its implementation will be a national company. “A software solution that is being considered by the NBU, is a platform that must be highly secure, efficient and flexible, to meet the needs of the country’s payments market and to allow the difficult issues in the non-cash turnover funds in Ukraine to be resolved. To our knowledge, there are still none a national platform, built using blockchain technology or its equivalents in other countries to date”, stated the press service of the NBU. When talking about the advantages that are gained designing a national payment system with blockchain technology, the National Bank of Ukraine noted that the use of public high-efficiency retail platform and new payment instruments can provide market and end-users an alternative solution with minimal transaction costs and instantaneous speed of transfer from one participant to another. According to the press service, the question of investment for the further development of the platform for the moment remains open. This includes exploring opportunities for the NBU to attract technical assistance from international funds and organizations. The pilot project is scheduled to commence on a voluntary basis, with the involvement of proactive incumbents in the payments market in Ukraine. Kate Shcheglova, editor-in-chief at “Future” magazine
The National Bank of Ukraine has confirmed the beginning of a pilot project for a national blockchain payment system to begin early next year. The bank noted advantages of such a system including the provision of alternative solutions with minimal transaction costs and instantaneous transferals between parties. According to the bank, this is an important step in developing new financial services that will be based on distributed ledger technology.