Capital market for business: Commission and CCI are working together to find practical solutions

The National Securities and Stock Market Commission and the Ukrainian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (UCCI) discussed ways to strengthen practical cooperation with Ukrainian companies on issues related to the development of the capital market.

This was discussed during a meeting between Oleksii Semeniuk, Chairman of the NSSMC, and Gennadiy Chyzhykov, UCCI President, as well as UCCI Vice Presidents Rostyslav Korobka and Nataliya Zabrudska.

The discussion centered on three questions:
1. What is currently preventing businesses from raising capital through the capital markets?
2. What new instruments do they need?
3. How can businesses themselves contribute to the development of these instruments?

“The state cannot create a mechanism on its own, without the business sector, and then simply expect the market to use it. If we want a functioning capital market, the business sector must participate in its development. We need real companies, real case studies, and honest feedback: what works, what doesn’t, and what needs to be changed,” said Chairman of the NSSMC Oleksii Semeniuk.

Among the systemic issues, the sides discussed foreign exchange restrictions and access for foreign capital, the complexity of certain issuance procedures, as well as the need to create more competitive opportunities for corporate and other financial instruments.

“We will work even more closely together to formulate a unified position on the challenges that limit access to capital: foreign currency issues by Ukrainian companies, capital repatriation, and access for foreign investors, as well as conditions that will give corporate and other instruments greater opportunities to compete for investors. All of this requires joint efforts,” said UCCI President Gennadiy Chyzhykov.

Today, a significant portion of market transactions involves government securities, which play a vital role in financing the state’s needs during the war. At the same time, to develop a fully-fledged market, it is necessary to expand the range of instruments available to both businesses and investors.

One of the Commission’s priorities is to significantly simplify businesses’ access to capital markets. In particular, the Commission is exploring ways to streamline and simplify issuance procedures in certain cases using a “single window” approach. At the same time, work ongoing on deregulation, the development of private investment accounts, and new ways for businesses to raise funds.

During the meeting, they discussed separately the prospects for industrial notes — a tool that could allow companies to raise funds under specific contracts and projects — as well as the possibilities for tokenizing assets and business projects.

From discussion to practical collaboration

The sides paid particular attention to how to transform the dialogue with the business community into concrete action. One possible approach could be to involve CCI member companies that are interested in financing and are willing to consider capital market instruments.

On its part, the Commission is ready to engage professional market participants in this dialogue so that, together with the business community, it can analyze specific needs and opportunities for using various financial instruments.

This format will allow us to see the barriers from the entrepreneurs’ point of view and help us understand which of them can be addressed at the regulator’s level and where legislative or systemic solutions are needed.

The UCCI also proposed involving experts with international experience in structuring financial instruments in future work and using the Chamber as a platform for dialogue with entrepreneurs.

What’s next?

The next stage of this collaboration should involve developing practical formats for interaction between the Commission, the UCCI, and the business community. The sides are planning to identify the areas of greatest relevance to entrepreneurs, gather requests and proposals from companies, and use them as a basis for establishing a framework for future collaboration.

A particular focus was on identifying specific business cases that could be used to assess how existing tools for raising capital work in practice, what barriers companies face, and what changes could be made to make this process easier.

“It is important to us that our collaboration yields practical results. Specific case studies allow us to identify real business needs, test how existing mechanisms work, and understand what needs to be changed. This is exactly the way we want to build a dialogue with entrepreneurs,” Oleksii Semeniuk emphasized.

The shared goal of the Commission and the UCCI is to make the capital market a practical source of financing for Ukrainian businesses. The aim is not to develop it in isolation from entrepreneurs, but to create it together with them — through dialogue, the exchange of experiences, and the gradual implementation of solutions that meet the real needs of businesses.