Borys Kushniruk, Ukrainian economist and former chairman of the board of one of the Ukrainian banks, Unex, said that the National Bank of Ukraine is exerting unjustified pressure on the bank of former President Petro Poroshenko, the International Investment Bank (IIB), under dubious pretexts.
Kushniruk believes that the NBU is acting in the interests of the political leadership of Ukraine and emphasises that the NBU’s inspections have become an instrument of pressure on bankers who are not in favour of the authorities. According to Kushniruk, corruption is rampant in the NBU’s Financial Monitoring Department, which is manifested in the illicit enrichment of the Department’s management, who, he says, withdraw corrupt funds for laundering abroad. The scandal is a negative backdrop for the visit of NBU Head Andrii Pyshnyi to Washington, as the heads of the department accused by Kushniruk are direct subordinates of Andrii Pyshnyi, and former President Petro Poroshenko has directly accused the NBU Head of fulfilling a political order.
The reason for Borys Kushniruk’s article was the NBU’s decision to impose a fine on the International Investment Bank owned by former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. Despite Poroshenko’s public appeal to NBU Head Andrii Pyshnyi, the latter never answered his question.
According to the economist, this case has a political background.
The expert says: ‘I have repeatedly written about the fact that government agencies in Ukraine are becoming instruments of reprisals against political rivals. The latest blatant example is the International Investment Bank, which was fined by the NBU for allegedly ‘laundering the proceeds of crime’. The absurd accusations against the former president, the pressure, and more demonstrate the complete loss of face by the NBU as an independent institution. It is especially disgusting that all this is happening in the context of the full-scale war, when the financial sector should be as united and efficient as possible. But we are witnessing the opposite phenomenon – deliberate destruction of individual banking institutions by the regulator itself. And there is not even a hint that the IIB is financially unstable. It is being destroyed simply because it belongs to Petro Poroshenko.’
He emphasises that the Financial Monitoring Department of the National Bank, which issued the decision to fine the IIB, has turned inspections into a tool for punishing the ‘wrong’ and ‘unwanted’. After all, Poroshenko’s bank is not the only one that has been subject to such inspections. However, after the fines were imposed on the IIB, representatives of other financial institutions began to publicly voice cases of unlawful pressure from the NBU.
Borys Kushniruk notes that, according to numerous reports from market participants, the Financial Monitoring Department under Anna Lypska actively uses on-site and off-site inspections, which usually result in the imposition of unreasonable and disproportionate sanctions. As a result of the inspections, the bank usually loses its licence, which effectively leads to its destruction.
‘At the same time, more and more evidence indicates that such actions are taken in the interests of certain competing banks, which are trying to take a monopoly position in the market with the help of administrative resources,’ writes the economist.
To support his words, he cites the fact that all decisions to impose sanctions are cancelled after being appealed in court, which, in his opinion, indicates the low efficiency of the Department.
In his article, Borys Kushniruk analyses the activities of the management of the Financial Monitoring Department, in particular, Anna Lypska and Iryna Drozd. According to him, Lypska was appointed to this position without proper experience in banking services, and her managerial decisions have repeatedly raised questions about her professional competence and impartiality.
According to Kushniruk, another official of the Financial Monitoring Department, the head of the on-site control department, Iryna Drozd, was recently fired for corruption. Informed sources claim that in 2024, she secretly purchased a luxury property in Warsaw, but did not declare it in her declaration.
Instead, Kushniruk writes, Drozd’s declaration lists accounts in the Polish bank PEKAO totalling more than $30,000 (plus another $40,000 for her husband).
‘This is extremely symbolic. Firstly, in the context of patriotism and trust of the NBU’s top officials in the national banking system. And secondly, it is extremely symbolic against the backdrop of the NBU’s currency restrictions. Today, it is still something out of the realm of fantasy for an ordinary citizen to transfer money abroad, or even to open an account in a foreign bank. But these restrictions are for ordinary Ukrainians, not for the elite,’ comments the expert indignantly.
He draws attention to an important fact. Iryna Drozd kept her funds in Ukrainian banks until 2022. Yet, after the war began, she opened accounts in foreign financial institutions.
‘In addition to PEKAO, there is Revolut, which the NBU is actively opposing in the Ukrainian market. However, while the NBU is opposing it, the top management of the National Bank is using its services,’ explains the economist.
In turn, the declaration of the Head of the Financial Monitoring Department, Anna Lipska, indicates that she has an account with Santander UK in London. The accounts in European banks looks like a ‘golden parachute’ and a tool for legalising dubious funds of corrupt Ukrainian officials.
Referring to his own sources in the National Bank of Ukraine, Borys Kushniruk claims that both Anna Lypska and Iryna Drozd have been on long trips abroad over the past two years, allegedly on business trips: Lypska – 114 days, Drozd – 110 days. According to him, knowledgeable experts suggest that these trips could have been used to export cash within the limits permitted by the NBU without a licence and further legalise it in other jurisdictions. The expert believes that the National Anti-Corruption Bureau should investigate this case.
In his article, the economist calls on NBU Governor Andriy Pyshnyi to act independently, rather than following political instructions from the government, as there are many questions about the NBU’s activities.
‘Pyshnyi’s team should not follow the orders of the Bank in search of any pretexts to put pressure on Petro Poroshenko, but think about the fact that the NBU’s activities will eventually become the subject of a very serious anti-corruption investigation. Especially in terms of the policy of interest rates on deposit certificates and non-transparent exchange rate policy, as very serious sources of corruption and abuse that have caused losses to the state, which are already measured in hundreds of billions of hryvnias,’ concludes the expert.
