Automatically translated version. May contain inaccuracies compared to the original.
Former Vice Prime Minister Olga Stefanishyna 11 publicly revealed in August that PrivatBank has been delaying almost every one of her card-to-card transactions for weeks due to enhanced financial monitoring. Similar complaints about PrivatBank’s financial monitoring have been voiced before — notably, a former head of the customs service complained about PrivatBank’s financial monitoring. According to Stefanishyna, a three-hour check prevented her daughter from receiving money even for metro fare.
Stefanishyna wrote on her Facebook page that she did not want to bring the situation to the public, but she could no longer endure it. She attached a screenshot of a conversation with a PrivatBank employee in which she asked for help for her child to get home.
"For almost a week now, for reasons unclear, it checks every single transaction I make from card to card for several hours," Olga Stefanishyna wrote on her Facebook.
According to Stefanishyna, the checks mainly target ordinary everyday transfers. She listed the operations that the bank considers suspicious:
transferring one's own funds from a salary card to one's own card for payments within the same bank;
transferring one's own funds to two underage children on junior cards linked to her account in the same bank.
The most acute situation occurred when Stefanishyna’s daughter waited three hours for a funds transfer at a shop in Podil to buy herself something. While the transaction from mother to child was under review, the girl, according to Stefanishyna, experienced a nervous breakdown and could not go home because there was not enough money on the card for the metro.
"When there was no strength left to wait, she could not go home because there was not enough money on the card for the metro, and her mother (that is, me) could not quickly transfer even 100 hryvnias to her because PrivatBank also sent that suspicious transaction to financial monitoring," Stefanishyna noted.
The former deputy prime minister suggested two explanations for what is happening: either bank staff have nothing to do, or this is a method of pressure on politically exposed persons (PEP) to force them to leave the bank. She emphasized that she personally plans to change banks and advised other customers to do so in advance. Stefanishyna clarified that all funds on her account are declared and that she passed authentication successfully.
Tightening control over politically exposed persons
Enhanced financial monitoring primarily affects clients with PEP status — current and former officials and their families. By law, banks are required to verify their transactions more thoroughly and confirm the sources of funds, which in practice often results in long delays even for small transfers.
Cases against Stefanishyna are being considered at the High Anti-Corrosion Court (VAKS) in Ukrainian context.
The situation around Stefanishyna intensified amid court proceedings against her. Earlier Informator reported that a court had ruled a preventive measure for Stefanishyna in a case of illegal enrichment. We also wrote that Stefanishyna was served a new suspicion, and her case is now being considered by the High Anti-Corruption Court.
Document: PDF proof of the original version of the news item "Стефанішина поскаржилась фінмоніторинг ПриватБанку, бо не змогла перевести донці грошей на метро". It records the publication content at the moment of the first scan, the preservation date and the source: Informator.