State treasury

The State Treasury (ST) is a system of the state executive power and acts under the Ministry of Finance.

The State Treasury consists of the Head Administration and its territorial organs in Autonomous Republic of Crimea, regions, cities of Kyiv and Sevastopol.

The ST is governed by the Constitution of Ukraine and Ukrainian legislation.

The ST maintains the fulfillment of the State Budget, and fulfills a lot of financial functions including managing funds, controlling them and using funds effectively. The functions that the State Treasury provides are:

• managing funds available, including foreign currency as well as the state out-of-budget funds in the frames of the expenses fixed for the definite time period;

• financing the expenses of the State Budget;

• collecting funds, accounting ( makes financial reports on the state and master budgets' fulfillment;

• managing the state (home and foreign) debts according to the (valid) legislation in use;

• controlling the receiving and use of the state

out-of-budget funds;

• working out and adopting the forms of accounting and reporting documents, and the order of reporting on the fulfillment of the budgets of all levels.

The Head Administration is a managing body of the State Treasury. The Head Administration supervises territorial organs of the ST; manages revenues and expenses of the State Budget, deals in the budget funds available, including foreign currency. It forecasts cash flow, defines the amount of current use of funds in the frame of expenses fixed for a definite time period; shares total tax implications, fees and other charges between the state budget and the budgets of regions, cities and local state authorities; collects, summarizes, and analyses financial statements on the fulfillment of the state and master budgets, reports to Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, the Government and the Ministry of Finance.

The State Treasury's organs have the right to open their accounts at any bank to control the revenues and expenses of the State Budget; to deal with transactions on placing the state securities (bonds), to clear them and paying profit.

The ST's organs have the right to check up accounting records as to the use of the state funds at any ministries, local organs of state administration, businesses and organizations.

Bank services

Banks may be defined as firms producing and selling financial services. Their success or failure depends on their ability to identify the financial services which the public demands, produce those services efficiently, and sell them at a competitive price. The service menu of banks does not remain unchanged as new services are constantly developed by banks. Many of them offer a combination of wholesale and retail banking.

The most important functions of a central bank are to accept responsibility for advising the government to make the country’s financial policy, to issue national currency, to regulate money supply and to supervise commercial banks. The aim of commercial banks is to earn profit and they are reaching it by providing different services to customers for the price which is called interest.

There are two general reasons for using bank accounts. The first and most common is the convenience and safety provided by a current account at a bank. The second is that small and regular surpluses are available to be saved, and for this purpose a bank provides deposit accounts.

So, a full range of banking services is offered to customers of the bank:

* It is a safe place for your money. You can open savings (deposit) account and earn interest. There are many different term-deposit accounts. Since these certificates of deposit offer very high interest rates they attract depositors to banks. To receive this high interest you needn’t withdraw money till the term is due, otherwise you will lose it;

* Banks open checking (current) accounts, which pay no interest to a customer but provide him with a checking book to write checks and pay any purchase or transaction. Recently new NOW and Super NOW accounts which pay customers interest have appeared in most banks;

* Banks offer credit services to customers: personal loans and different credit cards. They finance industries, commerce and direct services by commercial loans;

* Banks provide their customers with such classes of credit as overdraft, mortgages and home improvement loans;

* Banks provide their customers traveling abroad with foreign currencies, travelers checks (cheques), eurocheques, euro cards;

* Investment advice: banks open ways to find and invest large amounts of money;

* Banks provide brokerage services;

* Banks provide a wide range of trust services for individuals and businesses in the form of estate settlement, trust administration of a customer’s securities, the management of property and agency services.