Ukraine becomes the financial center of Europe against the background of “tightening the screws” to banks in Russia | Markets and companies

In recent years, there have been ongoing processes in Russia to clean up financial companies, to tighten the screws by the state and to take control of banking institutions. Large companies leave the market due to sanctions and tough management methods, thereby increasing their presence in the markets of the CIS countries, including Ukraine.

For example, on June 15, the head of the Central Bank of Russia (CBR) Elvira Nabiullina announced that the regulator intends to “tighten the screws” in the financial market ostensibly to protect inexperienced investors, about which reported on the website of the State Duma of the Russian Federation. In turn, at the HSE Banking Institute appreciated such a statement, noting that this will not in any way increase the safety of customers, but will lead to its monopolization, and, therefore, an increase in the quality of services can not be expected.

On the same day the government made a bill to the State Duma prohibiting banks from sending information about clients and their operations to foreign countries upon request, as well as obliging to report such requests from foreign authorities to Rosinfomonitoring and the Central Bank.

The explanatory note to the document says that the changes are designed to “minimize risks” from the actions of “unfriendly states” that, under the threat of sanctions, may request confidential information. For banks, this will mean that they will not be able to make dollar transactions, which is quite a serious problem for many players. If the ban is violated, the institution faces sanctions from the Russian legislation.

Earlier, in early June, the Association of Russian Banks, together with the National Council of the Financial Market, opposed another draft law related to cross-border transactions – the State Duma amendments oblige them to control all transfers of clients from the list of countries approved by the authorities.

Against the background of such strict control methods in the Russian Federation a lot of scammers appearthat can artificially create problems and solve them for money. One of these is the owner and founder of the Russian payment system ChronoPay Pavel Vrublevsky.

After serving more than two years in a Russian prison for a cyber attack on the payment system of the airline “Aeroflot”, he again started doing cybercrime… For several months now, Vrublevsky has been blackmailing financial companies, banks and individuals in Russia, demanding tens and hundreds of thousands of US dollars for non-disclosure of confidential information. A few weeks ago a criminal decided to leave to the markets of Kazakhstan, Latvia and even China and African countries. However, as far as Ukraine is concerned, he did not take into account the specifics of the legislation.

Heads of Ukrainian banks collectively filed an appeal to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Security Service of Ukraine about the activities of the cyber fraudster Vrublevsky. Andriy the Wise from the Ukrainian Association of Finance and Innovation commented on the cyber ransomware demand as follows: “Vrublevsky simply does not know international law and does not understand how the activities of financial technologies in Ukraine are regulated. The Central Bank of the Russian Federation has never influenced or regulated foreign banks abroad.”

“International payment systems (Visa, Mastercard, China UnionPay) in their rules clearly explain the transparency of cross-border payments and the legal field of the transaction, most likely, the parsimony of Mr. Vrublevsky’s knowledge has once again played a cruel joke with him,” said Mikhail Voroshilov from the Ukrainian Association of Payment systems.

Experts also note that in Ukraine, unlike Russia, there are no such problems in the financial market, it safe and stable… In addition, last year a law was passed on the legalization of the gambling business, which was supported by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the Verkhovna Rada. therefore companies and financial institutions that work in this area do not need to be afraid of blackmailers from a neighboring country.

Moreover, large transnational financial companies are increasingly entering Ukraine, which strengthens the country’s economy and protects it from scammers like Vrublevsky. So, back in 2019, a service for international transfers TransferWise reduced the time of transactions to our country. Ukrainian users have since then been able to receive transfers instantly 24/7.

Famous British fintech service Revol in May 2021, he also launched fast transfers to Ukraine. Money can be sent in more than 30 currencies.

Summing up, we can conclude that at the moment Ukraine, thanks to the openness and loyalty of the legislation, gains the trust of major world market players and becomes the financial center of Europe.

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