Pivdenny and RIB are building economic bridges between Ukraine and Europe – Yurii Voievoda

The teams of Pivdenny Joint-Stock Bank and the Regionala Investiciju Banka (RIB), Latvia, help finance the development of Ukrainian projects in Europe with credit risk assessment in Ukraine. At the panel discussion of the XVII International Forum “Polish-Ukrainian Days of Business”, Yurii Voievoda, Head of Investment Business Department at Pivdenny Bank, spoke about the challenges that entrepreneurs face during integration into new markets.

“Ukrainian business is quite powerful, independent and knows how to work hard. And now it faces an important task, which is to continue building ties and active integration into the European market in order to economically connect Ukraine and Europe forever. This is similar to building an imaginary economic bridge with two-way traffic: European, in particular Polish, businesses will come and invest in Ukraine, while Ukrainian businesses will invest in Europe and Poland,” said Yurii Voievoda.

According to Yurii Voievoda, today there are many financial instruments for Polish businesses that export products to Ukraine. Ukrainian business in Europe does not have such a variety of tools.

“Since the beginning of the war, we have seen the need for lending Ukrainian businesses in Europe. And together with the partner bank RIB, we intensified work in this area. EU banks mostly work with standard credit products aimed at local companies. It is not easy for them to assess the credit risk of Ukrainian business in Europe: there is no credit history in the EU, detailed information about business in Ukraine and existing military risks. For European banks, such projects look like a startup that is difficult to evaluate. We created a hybrid team of professionals from two banks: Pivdenny evaluates the client’s business in Ukraine, the strategy and risks of the project in Europe, while RIB conducts a legal analysis and checks if the project complies with EU norms. But our greatest value is the ability to work with Ukrainian businesses as well as the ability to assess Ukrainian risk. The result of joint efforts was the creation of the Pivdenny West Bridge program, which has been helping to build an economic bridge between Ukraine and Europe for almost a year,” said Yurii Voievoda.

You can learn more about the Pivdenny West Bridge program, which helps Ukrainian businesses to get financing for development in Europe, here.