Monobank has applied to the National Bank of Ukraine for permission to introduce a Bitcoin debit card later this month.
The National Bank of Ukraine has given Monobank permission to deploy its Bitcoin debit card later this month, pending clearance from the bank.
An e-bank with a significant presence in Ukraine is gearing up to introduce a debit card that will support Bitcoin (BTC) trade as the country’s government moves forward with cryptocurrency-related legislation.
Oleg Gorokhovsky, co-founder of Ukrainian online banking application Monobank, said Monday that a trial integration with a bitcoin trading platform had been completed.
It is anticipated that the new connection would allow Monobank customers to purchase and trade Bitcoin using their debit cards. Depending on whether the National Bank of Ukraine grants permission, Monobank plans to launch the new function later this month, according to Gorokhovsky.
Monobank, which was established in 2017, works under the licence of Universal Bank, which is controlled by billionaire Sergey Tigipko, a former Ukrainian central bank head and former deputy prime minister. According to reports, Monobank’s user base has grown to more than 2.5 million users as of August 2020.
Gorokhovsky, who is also a former deputy board chairman of PrivatBank — Ukraine’s biggest commercial bank — voiced his excitement about Bitcoin earlier this year. Gorokhovsky is also a former deputy board chairman of PrivatBank.
In a February Facebook post, Gorokhovsky said that Tesla’s $1.5 billion Bitcoin purchase had finally persuaded him that Bitcoin was here to stay and that the cryptocurrency was here to stay. He also revealed that he had a significant personal investment in Bitcoin, with the expectation that BTC will have reached $100,000 by 2022.
The Ukrainian government is making steady progress on a package of laws pertaining to digital currency.
According to Oleksandr Bornyakov, deputy minister of the Ministry of Digital Transformation, the authority has proposed that the revised draught law “On Virtual Assets” be adopted in the second reading of the parliament.
Ukraine’s parliament also approved new laws on Wednesday, governing payment methods, as well as rules governing the central bank’s digital currency, the hryvnia.
