According to some foreign language publications, following a memorandum signed by Binance and the Ukrainian government in November 2019, the former has reportedly applied to open a bank account in a Ukrainian bank, as announced by the Ukraine’s minister of digital transformation.
If this information is correct, it may mean that the exchange is looking to expand deeper into the Eastern European region in hopes of attracting investors and traders who are now subject to some digital asset regulations, while others, in Russia for example, are still in a grey area with respect to how digital assets are regulated, taxed and managed.
Binance’s representative in Russia, Gled Kostarev said that the exchange decided to open an account with IBOX bank, because “the negotiations with this particular bank happened most quickly”. As pointed out by Ukraine’s ministry of digital transformation, the next steps will be amendments to the country’s tax code to classify digital assets and currencies, following which presumably residents will be able to open accounts and trade/invest in digital assets using Ukrainian hryvnia (UAH).