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Automatically translated version. May contain inaccuracies compared to the original.
NABU and the SAP announced the exposure of a scheme whose participants, according to the investigation, may have laundered 150 million hryvnias and used them to post bail for former energy minister Herman Galushchenko.
Investment banker Serhiy Fursa told 24 Channel that carrying out such an operation became possible because the bank’s automatic financial control system was turned off. According to him, in that case the operation, instead of being checked automatically, effectively depends on an individual employee.
How a bail of 150 million hryvnias could have been processed
Serhiy Fursa noted that NABU described the scheme’s mechanism in detail in its materials – the bank’s financial monitoring system is supposed to automatically react to suspicious transactions involving large sums.
If the origin of funds raises questions, the system should flag the transaction as risky. After that, the bank must verify the source of the funds and the economic rationale for the operation.
Investment banker on NABU’s investigation: video
However, according to the banker, in the case of the bail for Galushchenko the automatic control could have been deliberately switched off.
“At Sens Bank, judging by these recordings, it was agreed at the bank’s leadership level that they would simply turn off this system that is supposed to operate continuously. And at that moment, when the system is not working, this operation is carried out, when everything is in manual mode, and then no one sees it,”
he said.
After the automatic system was turned off, the decision about the funds depended on a specific bank employee. He suggested that this person could have been dependent on the bank’s leadership and representatives of the Office of the President.
What this means for the state banking system
The investment banker drew attention to corporate governance issues in a state-owned bank. In his view, if the investigation’s version about de facto control of the bank by a certain group is confirmed, that would have far more serious consequences than the bail transaction itself.
Fursa believes that in such a case it is necessary to reboot the bank’s management and its supervisory board.
However, he emphasized that this story should not be generalized to the entire Ukrainian banking system. Corporate governance in Ukrainian state banks generally functions fairly effectively, but Sens Bank’s problems are systemic.
“The Ministry of Finance is the owner of Sens Bank, and this should be initiated by the Ministry of Finance. It should stand up and say: yes, we’ve seen it, well, this cannot operate like this. Therefore, as the owner we dismiss these people from their positions and launch fair and transparent competitions to appoint new ones,”
the investment banker summarized.
Recall that the Cabinet of Ministers began suspending the leadership of the state-owned Sens Bank; in particular, the chairman of the supervisory board, Mykola Hladyshenko, was removed from his post for six months. The decision was made after NABU and the SAP announced the exposure of a criminal organization involving high-ranking officials that laundered 150 million hryvnias through this financial institution.
Because of the high-profile scandal, searches were conducted at the bank, and the Verkhovna Rada summoned the head of the National Bank, Andriy Pyshnyi, to report.
Document: PDF proof of the original version of the news item "Вимкнули автоматичну систему контролю: як через "Сенс Банк" провели заставу за Галущенка". It records the publication content at the moment of the first scan, the preservation date and the source: Channel 24.
