Explanations as to the NBU impact measures imposed on Pivdenny Bank in March 2025

The Bank highly appreciates the regulator’s supervisory function and recognises the importance of constant improvement of the anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism system.

The National Bank of Ukraine fined Pivdenny Bank:

• for 7.5 mln UAH for due to isolated shortcomings in due diligence checks of two clients, namely the failure to identify certain inherent indicators of suspicious financial transactions and risk criteria in the process of monitoring business relationships/financial transactions of those clients;
• for 0.4 mln UAH for untimely detection by the Bank of a separate indicator of FX transactions (out of the list specified in the appendix to Regulation No. 8 of the Law of Ukraine “On Currency and Currency Transactions” that was in effect until 16.12.2023). 

Pivdenny Bank has cooperated with the NBU and reflected on the recommendations provided and implemented a set of measures aimed at increasing efficiency of its financial monitoring procedures.

The problem arose in relation to the clients’ export-import transactions in energy and petroleum products during a challenging situation in the Ukrainian energy market. Such transactions were critically important for ensuring the stability of the energy sector and could potentially be subject to additional control indicators based on certain formal attributes.

At the same time, the Bank had full scope of information about the nature, economic content, and feasibility of those transactions; it had conducted all the mandatory checks and client follow-ups in compliance with the Bank’s internal procedures and the applicable laws.

Furthermore, the analysis of operations of one of the specified clients showed certain inconsistencies between the provisions of customs and banking law applying to natural gas imports and re-exports. The Bank has come up with an initiative to address those gaps in regulations and to harmonise the relevant laws, and we have sent it to a relevant association for further consideration.

The Bank’s initiative lies in introducing changes to the currency and customs regulations in order to allow for a simple currency supervision procedure to be applied to gas imports to a customs warehouse and subsequent gas re-exports on the basis of a single receipt of foreign exchange earnings, thus getting rid of artificial overdue debts which are reflected in bank reporting.

The NBU’s inspection revealed no suspicious or illegal operations conducted by the Bank, no involvement of the clients in money laundering or terrorist financing schemes, and no cases of the Bank failing to comply with legal requirements regarding refusal to conduct transactions.

The Bank has paid the full fine according to the NBU’s resolution on implementation of impact measures based on financial monitoring check results.

To learn more about the NBU’s impact measures, click the link.

Pivdenny Bank shall continue acting on the principles of transparency, responsibility and complete compliance with the requirements of the Ukrainian laws and regulations of the National Bank of Ukraine.

The Bank remains a reliable financial partner for its clients and continues to perfect all the financial monitoring and risk management processes on a systemic level.