KIEV, Jan. 21 – The National Bank of Ukraine has drawn up several legislative initiatives aimed at, among other things, facilitating mergers and acquisitions and removing toxic assets from bank balance sheets.

"The Ukrainian banking system has no other way than consolidation – mergers and acquisitions of banks. Unfortunately, legislation in this area is very complicated… Finally we've decided to amend the relevant laws which considerably relax procedures so that banks are more interested in merging when there is no other way," First Deputy NBU Governor Oleksandr Pysaruk told reporters on Tuesday.