NBU Will Interview Sense Bank Chief, Opens Board-Wide Suitability Probe

The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) will interview Sense Bank management board chairman Oleksiy Stupak on Aug. 26 as part of an administrative proceeding into his professional fitness, and has opened a review of the collective suitability of the bank’s entire supervisory board, Governor Andriy Pyshny told the Verkhovna Rada on Thursday, Aug. 20.Sense Bank, formerly known as Alfa-Bank Ukraine, is one of the country’s largest systemically important lenders and has operated under state ownership since July 2023, when the government nationalized the bank after sanctions imposed on its former Russian owners threatened its capital position and solvency.JOIN US ON TELEGRAMFollow our coverage of the war on the @Kyivpost_official.The regulator also backed the Cabinet of Ministers’ move to suspend Stupak from his duties for the duration of an internal investigation, Pyshny said, noting that under Ukrainian law that authority rests with the bank’s owner – the state.During enhanced supervision of the bank, NBU found signs of a hidden management structure that may have been in place even before Sense Bank’s nationalization, put together by representatives of its former sanctioned shareholders, Pyshny said.Given Stupak’s possible involvement in adopting collegial decisions, NBU has opened administrative proceedings against him, Pyshny said in parliament, adding that new materials released by Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) prompted the regulator’s decision to launch unscheduled inspections. Other Topics of Interest Ukraine May Have Left 2 Russian Frigates Unable to Launch Missiles After Novorossiysk Strike Satellite imagery reportedly shows major damage to the Admiral Makarov and Admiral Essen, potentially putting two Russian frigates out of service for an extended period. Before nationalization, Sense Bank was controlled through Luxembourg-registered ABH Holdings S.A., the vehicle through which sanctioned Russian businessmen Mikhail Fridman, Petr Aven, and Andrey Kosogov held stakes in a range of assets, including the Ukrainian lender. ABH Holdings has since filed suit against Ukraine over the nationalization, seeking compensation.Supervisory board chairman fails independence testA separate decision targets Mykola Hladyshenko, chairman of Sense Bank’s supervisory board. NBU’s banking supervision committee found he does not meet independence requirements and is demanding the Cabinet, as shareholder, immediately terminate his powers and appoint a replacement.Materials released by NABU show Hladyshenko received and acted on instructions from third parties, which the regulator said was sufficient grounds to conclude he failed the independence test. NBU has also opened administrative proceedings to assess the collective suitability of the entire supervisory board.Pyshny said NABU materials indicate Hladyshenko’s formal recusal from his duties did not end his actual influence over the bank’s operations, and that the supervisory board failed to respond adequately.The National Bank began reviewing Hladyshenko’s independence in May 2026, after the first tranche of the so-called “Mindich tapes” surfaced. The regulator twice requested pre-trial investigation materials from NABU and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO), but law enforcement declined both times, citing investigative secrecy.According to the NBU, the supervisory board currently lacks a quorum and cannot legally act. Additionally, it is pressing the Cabinet and the relevant Verkhovna Rada committee to complete its membership with new appointees.Scrutiny follows aNABU bail-laundering probeThe regulator’s moves compound a week of upheaval at the state-owned bank. As Kyiv Post has reported, the Cabinet on Wednesday, Aug. 19, removed Hladyshenko as supervisory board chairman and moved to remove Stupak as well, under a NABU and SAPO investigation dubbed “Forrest Gump.”Prime Minister Serhii Koretskyi said at the time that “the facts disclosed by anti-corruption bodies require proper evaluation and cannot go unanswered,” adding that “other bank officials named in the pre-trial investigation materials must face similar accountability.”NABU and SAPO said the probe uncovered a scheme in which Hr.150 million ($3.3 million) was laundered through Sense Bank to post bail for former energy minister Herman Halushchenko, in a separate case dubbed “Midas,” at the end of June.NABU detective Mykhailo Romaniuk said the funds moved through shell company accounts, with bail reportedly posted by four companies.NBU flagged problems well before this weekThe National Bank has pointed to years of enhanced supervision at Sense Bank predating this week’s fallout. In an official statement issued after a May session of a Verkhovna Rada temporary investigative commission on the bank, NBU wrote that it had conducted three inspection audits of Sense Bank since nationalization alongside numerous off-site reviews of corporate lending, transactional pricing, internal controls, and financial monitoring.Between 2023-26, NBU wrote in its press release on May 6, that it sent 13 appeals to law enforcement bodies and the State Tax Service, plus four letters to the State Financial Monitoring Service, regarding the bank.That supervision uncovered signs of a previously hidden parallel management structure, prompting Sense Bank itself to commission an independent legal review followed by a forensic audit.That review examined the bank’s governance from 2012-22 and found a practice of double-protocoling decisions of collegial bodies, parallel hidden internal documents and committee structures, and “shadow leaders” of the bank operating with their own budgets, along with concealed decisions on transactions with suspicious persons.NBU fined Sense Bank twice over financial monitoring violations in that period: Hr.47.7 million ($1.1 million) in 2023 and Hr.4.1 million ($95,300) in 2025.The supervisory board’s lack of quorum leaves the National Bank pressing the Cabinet of Ministers and the Verkhovna Rada’s finance committee to appoint new independent directors before the Aug. 26 interview with Stupak takes place. Olena Hrazhdan is the Business Reporter at Kyiv Post, covering Ukraine’s markets, business, and economic policy. While she reports broadly on economic issues, her core focus is banking, finance, monetary and fiscal policy. Olena previously wrote for leading Ukrainian business media and became a Fellow of the International Monetary Fund’s Journalism Fellowship in 2024.