Cypriot Offshore Companies, Drops, and NBU Fines: What Lies Behind Monobank’s Public Image

For years Monobank has cultivated the image of Ukraine’s most innovative bank, and its co-founder Oleg Horokhovskyi actively supports that image on social media: giving away prizes, paying off random users’ loans, and presenting himself as the “people’s banker.” But behind this picture a very different story emerges.

More than 10 million Ukrainians have entrusted their money, personal and digital data to an entity that does not hold its own banking license. It was Horokhovskyi’s close ties with then-Minister of Digital Transformation Mykhailo Fedorov and support from the leadership of the National Bank of Ukraine that created the conditions for Monobank’s rapid growth. It is no coincidence that Horokhovskyi became one of the main sponsors and beneficiaries of the so-called “cardboard protest” in support of Fedorov, since maintaining political influence is directly connected to preserving the conditions in which his business empire was built.

But the main issue is even deeper. If you think Monobank is a Ukrainian company that directly owns its key assets, the corporate documents tell a different story. At the center of the entire ecosystem is Fintech Bend LLC, through which the mobile app, software, and other services operate. Over recent years this company gradually came under the control of offshore structures.

Initially the owners of Fintech Bend included the Cypriot companies Crestline Limited and Nisets Limited. Later the Antimonopoly Committee allowed Crestline Limited to gain control of the company, after which it acquired 63,98% of the corporate rights. At the same time the shares of Oleg Horokhovskyi and Mykhailo Rohalskyi were reduced to a symbolic 0,0081% each. Formally, Monobank’s largest asset ended up owned by a company registered in Cyprus.

However, the story does not end there. Crestline Limited is not the only offshore company in this structure. The business ecosystem also includes Nisets Limited, Oakworth Limited, and Fernly Limited. Through them shares in Fintech Bend, ACi DiSi Processing, Mosst, Kilobyte 1024 and other group companies are held. Most of these legal entities are registered in Limassol, and the directors of some are managers from Fintech Bend itself. At the same time the company’s authorized capital was reduced from 101 million UAH to 1,23 million UAH.

While the corporate structure was moving to Cypriot jurisdiction, new questions arose around the banking ecosystem itself. In just 2024 year Universal Bank, on whose basis Monobank operates, closed about 80 thousand drop accounts — the most among all Ukrainian banks. For breaches of financial monitoring requirements the National Bank of Ukraine fined the institution twice — 10,45 million and 27,3 million hryvnias. Against the backdrop of multi-billion turnovers these sums appear insignificant, but the very fact that sanctions were applied draws attention to the operation of the financial monitoring system.

Another high-profile incident occurred in March of 2026. Oleg Horokhovskyi published in his social networks a screenshot of a client’s video verification, mistakenly claiming to show an alleged Russian flag that later turned out to be the flag of Slovenia. After that the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights opened a corresponding case. The incident again drew attention to the issue of protecting users’ personal data, which—like Monobank’s financial infrastructure—is part of an ecosystem whose key companies are already structured through Cypriot offshore entities.

By the way, we have already sent appeals to FATF, AMLA, EBA, FinCEN and the SEC demanding they examine the group’s offshore structure, identify the ultimate beneficiaries of the Cypriot companies Crestline Limited, Nisets Limited, Oakworth Limited and Fernly Limited, investigate the flow of funds between these companies and related Ukrainian business entities, and provide a legal assessment of the possible use of such corporate mechanisms to extract profit and evade proper financial oversight.

Prize giveaways, loud PR and millions of satisfied customers — that is the public side of Monobank. Behind it are offshore companies, NBU fines, tens of thousands of closed drop accounts, and a corporate structure long since moved beyond Ukraine’s borders.