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Automatically translated version. May contain inaccuracies compared to the original.
The National Bank of Ukraine imposed a fine on state-owned Sense Bank in the amount of 25 million hryvnias for violations of anti‑money laundering requirements. The sanction against Sense Bank was announced amid a high‑profile corruption scandal surrounding the institution’s leadership.
According to the National Bank, the institution was penalized for violations of parts one and two of Article 7 of the law on preventing legalization of proceeds from crime. It concerns the bank’s inadequate application of a risk‑based approach, as well as violations of paragraph 4 of part two of Article 8 of the same law—relating to improper customer verification.
On the same day, the regulator punished two other financial institutions for similar violations:
Oschadbank was fined 10 million hryvnias for inadequate customer due diligence and improper application of the risk‑based approach, as well as for delayed or incomplete provision of information upon requests from the NBU.
Oschadbank is also accused of including in client questionnaires data the accuracy of which could not be confirmed with appropriate documents.
LLC "Lombard Credit Ukraine" was fined 2,7 million hryvnias.
Sense Bank was brought to a fine amid loud NABU investigations.
The fine against Sense Bank appeared after 19 August, NABU and SAP announced the investigation “Forrest Gump” about a criminal group that organized the legalization of funds for a bail regarding former energy and justice minister Hermann Galushchenko, using the state-owned Sense Bank for this purpose. The next day anti‑corruption agencies published a second part of the investigation—“Faida”—about the same group organizing raider seizures of real estate and enterprises in Kyiv.
The prosecutor of the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office demanded the arrest of Sense Bank’s chairman Oleksiy Stupak with an alternative bail of 150 million hryvnias. And 2 in September, the National Bank recognized Stupak as not meeting qualification requirements for professional suitability and sent the bank owner a demand to replace him.
Earlier, Informator reported that the High Anti‑Corruption Court released the head of Sense Bank Oleksiy Stupak on bail of 15 million hryvnias, obliging him not to travel outside Kyiv, surrendering foreign passports and wearing an electronic bracelet. According to the investigation, the banker facilitated the legalization of funds that later went to the bail for Hermann Galushchenko. We also wrote that the NBU fined Ukrgasbank, an insurance company, and a number of microfinance institutions for similar AML/financial monitoring violations—at the time the largest bank fine reached 17,6 million hryvnias.
Document: PDF proof of the original version of the news item "НБУ оштрафував Сенс Банк на 25 мільйонів гривень за неналежну протидію відмиванню коштів". It records the publication content at the moment of the first scan, the preservation date and the source: Informator.
