Several UK banks have refused to open accounts for a Ukrainian fintech firm run by PrivatBank’s former tech director Dmytro Dubilet, wrongly claiming that Ukraine is under financial sanctions.
According to Dubilet, the co-founder of Fintech Band, the firm that is developing mobile-only bank Monobank, which is an indirect competitor to the now-state-owned PrivatBank, his company has received several refusals from UK banks to open accounts in the United Kingdom.
“It turns out that if a company founded by Ukrainians tries to open an account in a British bank, then most likely it’ll be turned down,” Dubilet wrote on Facebook on Aug. 2.
He quoted a standard reply he has received from UK banks: “Ukraine is under a range of sanctions. And the policy of our bank foresees no cooperation with sanctioned countries.'”
One bank officer sent Dubilet an official list of countries that are the “financial sanctions targets” that banks have been asked to avoid.
It lists Ukraine along with Afghanistan, Burundi, and Syria, according to Dubilet.
“Ukraine? Sorry, don’t want to deal with it. Goodbye,” Dubilet said on Facebook, commenting on his communications with UK bank officials.
Dubilet thinks there could be two reasons why Ukraine was placed on this list: because of the sanctions against Ex-Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, who fled the country after the EuroMaidan Revolution; and the sanctions against officials that took part in the invasion and occupation of Crimea by Russia in 2014.
Dubilet says the list does not include Russia. He did not say how many banks had refused to open accounts for him, and did not immediately reply to request for comment.
According to Dubilet’s Facebook posts and YouTube blogs, Fintech Band planned to launch a Monobank-like bank in the UK and needed to open a bank account there.
In Ukraine, Monobank has at least 300,000 active users and works as a plug-in internet bank for Universal Bank, which belongs to Ukrainian tycoon Sergei Tigipko.
That might a reason why the banks refuse to work with Dubilet: The multimillionaire Tigipko was once an ally of runaway former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, who fled to Russia after the EuroMaidan Revolution. Tigipko even ran in the 2014 special presidential election, finishing with 5 percent of the vote. Since then he has kept a low profile politically.
Late on Aug. 2 the Embassy of Ukraine in the UK promised to look into the issue. It insisted that UK financial sanctions aren’t intended to target Ukraine, but persons who are “accused of breaching the territorial integrity… of Ukraine, or of embezzlement and abusing human rights.”
The embassy said the UK banks’ actions “indicate a lack of awareness about how to apply these sanctions.”
However, on Aug. 3 Dubilet said that he didn’t want his Facebook post to be perceived as a political complaint, and neither did he want the embassy to be involved.
“The post was about the fact that Ukrainians can face more problems with (UK) banks that Russians… and about the conservatism of British banks,” he said.
“Luckily, there’s capitalism in Britain – there are plenty of other banks.”
The Kyiv Post’s technology coverage is sponsored by Ciklum and NIX Solutions. The content is independent of the donors.
