Since the beginning of 2026 through August 22, the National Bank of Ukraine has imposed fines on dozens of participants in the non-bank financial market totaling about UAH 374 million, and has also forcibly revoked the licenses of at least 20 financial companies, insurers and pawnshops, according to calculations by the Experts Club analytical center based on the regulator’s decisions.
The calculation does not include banks, credit unions, or cases in which companies voluntarily surrendered their licenses.
The largest amount of fines was imposed in May. At that time, LLC FC Kontraktovyi Dim, operating under the EasyPay brand, and LLC Swift Garant, associated with the City24 service, were each fined UAH 135.15 million. Insurance company VUSO was fined UAH 40.7 million, while LLC 1 Safe Agency of Necessary Loans, known under the MyCredit brand, was fined UAH 6.13 million.
Other major sanctions since the beginning of the year include a UAH 11.64 million fine for Smartiway Ukraine, more than UAH 9 million for Fard Standard, and around UAH 8 million in total for NovaPay.
In August, the NBU fined LLC FC Atlana UAH 198.88 thousand, LLC FC Finstyle UAH 182.81 thousand, and LLC FC Groway UAH 216.18 thousand. The regulator also revoked the license of the latter company for failure to comply with a requirement to remedy a violation related to the non-submission of reporting for 2025.
Since the beginning of the year, the entities that have been forcibly deprived of their licenses include, in particular, FC Takelau, Vash Lombard, FC Asap, FC Liberty Finance, Credit Partners, Skhid Finance, FC Svarog Finance, City Fin Alliance, Lombard Platinum Skarb, FC Solid Group, Gold Split, FC Royal Finance 1, Sent Pro, Leasing Company Aton-XXI, FC Alkor Capital, Prosto Leasing, FC Online Finance, insurers Asko DS and Peremoha, as well as FC Groway.
The main reasons for the NBU’s sanctions in 2026 were violations of financial monitoring requirements, reporting and internal control requirements, non-compliance with capital adequacy standards, problems with ownership structures, as well as refusal or inability to undergo inspection checks.
Separately, in August, the NBU prohibited the provision of a number of financial and payment services through Money24/7 services and branches without the required authorization. This case is not included in the license revocation statistics, since the regulator classified the activity as the provision of services without the relevant authorization.
Source: decisions and statements of the National Bank of Ukraine for January-August 2026, calculations by Experts Club.
The National Bank of Ukraine has banned the provision of financial and payment services through online services, branches, and other resources operating under the Money24/7 brand, as it has identified evidence of a number of transactions being conducted without the required licenses.
According to the NBU, the decision applies to Money24.7 Agency LLC, Legion 1913 LLC, VAT 1913 LLC, “Trikotazhna Mosaika” LLC, “FU ‘GGLA’” LLC, Andriy Smirnov—whom the regulator identifies as the ultimate beneficial owner—as well as other individuals who operate through Money24/7 or are under its significant or decisive influence.
During its supervisory review, the NBU identified indications that the Money24/7 network was being used to provide services involving the trading of foreign currency in cash, the raising of funds and bank metals subject to return, as well as the transfer of funds without opening an account.
According to the regulator, the listed companies do not hold the necessary licenses to provide these services.
The exception is LLC “FU ‘GGLA’,” which holds a license to trade in foreign currency in cash and may continue to carry out this specific type of activity. The ban applies to other financial and payment services for which the necessary authorization is lacking.
The decision applies to the website money24.kiev.ua, the Money24/7 trademarks, Telegram channels and bots associated with the brand, other online resources, as well as a network of branded branches.
The NBU reported that, during its supervisory review, it identified legal and economic indicators of a connection between the companies and services. As a result, individuals operating through Money24/7 were classified by the regulator as providers of financial and payment services without the required authorization.
The NBU Board’s decision was adopted on August 17, 2026, upon the recommendation of the Committee on the Supervision and Regulation of Banking Activities and Oversight of Payment Infrastructure.
Money24/7 was already under the scrutiny of law enforcement agencies. In August, law enforcement officials notified the alleged organizer of the network—whose activities were investigated as part of a special operation in July—of their suspicion.
According to the Office of the Prosecutor General, the service positioned itself as a network of currency exchange points and a platform for transactions involving cryptoassets. Investigators claim that in some cases, after receiving funds from customers, the participants in the scheme failed to fulfill their obligations. These circumstances represent the investigators’ version of events and are subject to legal assessment by the court.
During more than 40 searches, law enforcement officials, according to the prosecutor’s office, seized cash in various currencies totaling more than 20 million hryvnias.
At the same time, the NBU’s current decision is a separate regulatory measure: it specifically concerns the provision of financial and payment services without licenses or authorization, rather than establishing the guilt of the network’s participants in the crimes alleged by law enforcement agencies.
According to Interfax-Ukraine, the transfer of warehouse facilities managed by ARMA to Ukrainian businesses affected by the war may take up to six months under current procedures, said Pavlo Velykorechanin, an expert with the Verkhovna Rada’s Anti-Corruption Committee and former deputy head of ARMA, in an exclusive interview with Interfax-Ukraine.
According to him, current legislation does not provide ARMA with a mechanism for directly transferring such facilities to enterprises on preferential terms.
For warehouse real estate, it is necessary to follow the standard procedure for selecting a manager on market terms through the “Prozorro” system.
The process includes the handover of the property, its appraisal, and the conduct of a tender or auction.
“I think six months is realistic,” said Velykorechanyn, noting that for many businesses, this timeframe is too long.
Earlier, the State Property Fund and ARMA began searching for warehouse facilities that could potentially be used by businesses that lost production or storage capacity as a result of Russian attacks.
The State Property Fund, in particular, is developing a mechanism to sublease state property to affected businesses for a nominal fee of 1 hryvnia.
However, no such procedure currently exists for ARMA assets. The law permits the direct transfer of certain categories of assets in the public interest, including water, electricity, oil, and gas, but warehouse real estate is not included among them.
FC Shakhtar (Donetsk) will play its nominal home matches in the 2026–27 Champions League season in London at Stamford Bridge, the home stadium of FC Chelsea, according to a post on the club’s Telegram channel on Friday.
“Subject to obtaining the necessary approvals from regulatory authorities, Shakhtar will play its home matches in the group stage of the 2026/27 UEFA Champions League at Stamford Bridge in London (United Kingdom). An agreement to this effect has been reached between the leadership of the Donetsk club and the management of Chelsea FC, which owns the stadium,” the statement reads.
The club announced that information regarding the start of ticket sales for Shakhtar’s matches at Stamford Bridge will be available shortly.
Restricting access to information about the tax debts of specific sole proprietors deprives Ukrainian businesses of one of the tools they use to vet potential business partners, according to Opendatabot CEO Alexei Ivanikin.
According to the service’s data, as of July 2026, approximately 1.5 million sole proprietors have tax debts, and the total amount of debt reaches 16.6 billion UAH.
However, since the start of the full-scale war, the State Tax Service has not published a public list of specific entrepreneurs in debt, even though data from the Unified State Register and general statistics on tax arrears remain publicly available.
“It is difficult to explain this restriction on security grounds: information about an individual entrepreneur’s tax debt does not contain any defense-related or strategically important details,” Ivanikin stated.
In his view, transparency of information has direct economic significance.
“When information about tax debt is public, entrepreneurs have an additional incentive to pay it off, as it affects their reputation and the choice of business partners. Since the start of the war, businesses have lost one of the tools for vetting counterparties and cannot see whether a potential partner is paying taxes,” noted the CEO of Opendatabot.
The number of entrepreneurs with tax arrears has increased approximately 2.3-fold since the start of the full-scale invasion—by 840,000 people—and the total amount of arrears has risen by 9.6 billion hryvnia.
In Ukraine, 1.5 million sole proprietors have tax debt, the total amount of which reached 16.6 billion UAH as of July 2026, according to data from the State Tax Service published by Opendatabot.
Since the beginning of 2026, the number of individual entrepreneurs with tax debt has increased by approximately 3%, while the total amount of debt has decreased by 300 million UAH.
On average, each individual entrepreneur with tax debt owes the state about 11,000 UAH in unpaid taxes.
In recent years, the number of entrepreneurs with tax debts has been growing by an average of about 16% annually.
Since the start of the full-scale war, the number of individual entrepreneurs in debt has more than doubled—by approximately 840,000 people—and the total amount of debt has increased by 9.6 billion hryvnias.
Thus, while at the start of the full-scale invasion, approximately 660,000 entrepreneurs had tax debts totaling about 7 billion UAH, by mid-2026 both figures had more than doubled.
Source: Opendatabot, based on data from the State Tax Service of Ukraine.
