1. Ukrainian banks will open
bank account to anone who is not on inter-bank blacklist. Just personal bank accounts.
2. Ukrainian banks does not open bank accounts fo foreign corporations. If you want a corporate bank account for a foreign company in Ukrain, you need an approval from the goverment. Almost impossible to receive..
3. Debit cards are issued immediately in time of bank account opening. There is no name printed on it. It is embosed mastercard. So it can be used everywhere as usual
credit card, but it is a debit card.
4. Ukrainian banks offers also a standard crecit cards like Visa Infinite, Amex Centurion.. but fees for issuing and renewal of this cards are 10 times higher than in a western world.
5. Ukrainian law does not allow to transfer more than 225,000 UAH to a foreign country withour approval of a central bank. It is 6,688 Eur limit for foreign transfers every day.
6. Transfers within country in other currency than UAH is not allowed.
7. To open a bank account, just a passport is needed. They also need to know your residential address, but you do not need any proof usualy. Just write it by a pen in any sheet of paper. They do not care about your real residency nor
tax residency.
8. Internet banking of the most banks is very old and not easy to understand. Banks freez internet banking accounts without any reason. You have to go to the bank and ask for reactivation. No one knows why is this happening. It looks like some kind of way how to have customers in a branch from time to time to sell them some more banking products.
9. If you are not ukrainian citizen, you can not have usual credit card. Foreigners can have secured credit cards only. Required secudiry deposit is 125-250 % of a credit limit.
10. You can have account in UAH, EUR, USD, RUB. If you use a privat banking service, you can have also accounts in some lesse usual currencies, which you can not have anywhere else.
11. Bank exchange rates for a currency change are usualy good. But is is cheaper to go to any exchange office in Kiev. Their spreads on EUR are extremely low. For example, they buy EUR for 33.60 and sell for 33.70 today. What is 0.15 % spread. That is great.
12. ATM limit for withdrawal in Ukraine are extremely low. The most ATMs allows you to withdraw no more than 5000 UAH, what is 148.8 Eur.
13. Shops in Ukraine accepts UAH only. But if are buying in the open market, (farmer´s market..) although UAH is freely exchangable for western currencies, sellers will give you 10-20 % discount if you pay by EUR or USD.
14. Debit card limits issued by Ukrainian bank are set very low. You have to ask tof increasing if you want. But a maximum limit which can not be exceeded without approval of a bank namager is 50,000 UAH per day - 1488 Eur in actual exchange rate..
15. You can have a separate debit card for each currency. Their fees are as low that it makes sense to have one for UAH, one for USD and one for EUR.
16. Their fees are extremely low. Many banks have no monthly maintenance fee, or fee lower than 2 Eur per month.
17. It is not possible to open bank account in Ukraine remotely by the law. But based on level of corruption, I believe it is possible if you know someone there.
