Business news from Ukraine

Business news from Ukraine

NovaPay’s remittance volume rose 36% over nine months – to 598.7 bln UAH

The volume of transfers via the international financial service “NovaPay” (TM NovaPay) for January–September 2026 increased by 36% compared to the same period in 2025, reaching 598.7 billion UAH, according to a company statement released on Monday.

According to the statement, the number of transfers increased by 12% to 388 million.

“The results for the first nine months confirm that our solutions are becoming increasingly in demand, and customers are making more active use of digital financial tools. It is important for us not only to increase transaction volumes but also to continuously improve the customer experience by offering new opportunities and convenient solutions,” NovaPay CEO Igor Prykhodko is quoted as saying in the press release.

The financial service noted that the company paid 1.47 billion UAH in taxes and fees over the first nine months of this year, which is 32% more than in the same period last year.

As previously reported, in the first half of 2026, NovaPay increased the volume of transfers by 41% compared to the same period in 2025—to 391 billion hryvnias—while the number of transfers rose by 12%—to 258 million.

NovaPay was founded in 2001 as an international financial service, part of the Nova Group (“Nova Poshta”), and provides financial services both online and offline at “Nova Poshta” branches. In 2023, the company became the first non-bank financial institution in Ukraine to receive an expanded license from the NBU, which allowed it to open accounts and issue cards; it was also the first non-bank to launch its own financial app with a wide range of financial services at the end of last year.

According to the National Bank of Ukraine, the company accounts for approximately 22.7% of the total volume of domestic money transfers.

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Citi and Coinbase Have Expanded Use of Stablecoins in Corporate Payments

According to Fixygen, Citi, one of the largest U.S. banks, and the cryptocurrency platform Coinbase have expanded their partnership in the areas of corporate payments and stablecoins.

Coinbase announced this on September 28.

As part of the partnership, Coinbase has selected Citi’s Virtual Account Wallet technology for its Coinbase Virtual Accounts system. This will allow clients to receive traditional funds into virtual accounts, with the proceeds then automatically converted into stablecoins.

At the same time, Coinbase’s payment infrastructure is being integrated with Citi’s corporate service, Spring by Citi.

This will enable Citi’s institutional clients to accept payments in stablecoins, using Coinbase’s infrastructure for processing digital assets and Citi’s banking infrastructure for traditional settlements.

This partnership signals a further convergence of traditional banking payments and public blockchain infrastructure.

For businesses, this model allows them to use stablecoins as a payment instrument without having to build their own infrastructure for storage, conversion, and interaction between bank accounts and the blockchain.

At the same time, Citi is developing its own tokenized payments infrastructure. In September, the bank also announced that it had conducted real dollar transactions via the Swift blockchain ledger in collaboration with First Abu Dhabi Bank and OCBC.

The expansion of the partnership between Citi and Coinbase is taking place as the U.S. is developing a separate regulatory framework for payment stablecoins and the Federal Reserve is drafting detailed requirements for their issuers.

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Cross-border stablecoin transfers rose by 77.5% — Chainalysis

According to Fixygen, the volume of tracked cross-border transfers in stablecoins rose by 77.5% over the latest reporting period—from $124.2 billion to $220.3 billion, according to data from the Chainalysis Geography of Cryptocurrency Report 2026, published on September 23.

The average monthly volume of cross-border transactions more than doubled—from approximately $11 billion in January 2025 to $24 billion in June 2026.

Chainalysis emphasizes, however, that the actual volume of international stablecoin transfers is likely significantly higher. The statistics include only transactions for which the company can identify both the sender’s and recipient’s countries.

A distinctive feature of the market is the relatively small size of transactions. The average cross-border transfer is about $3,000, which, according to analysts, does not correspond to typical institutional transactions.

This pattern points to the growing practical use of stablecoins—for paying suppliers, sending money between countries, and transferring savings out of unstable national currencies.

At the same time, the geography of fund flows is changing. The largest quarter of cross-border routes accounts for 96.1% of the value of transfers, but Chainalysis has observed the rapid emergence of new payment corridors.

During the period under review, 4,708 new cross-border routes emerged, through which a total of $2.64 billion was transferred. The world’s largest stablecoin, USDT, plays a significant role in these transactions.

Growth continues even amid weak conditions in the cryptocurrency market. The total volume of funds flowing into cryptocurrency services decreased by 4.3%—from $9.3 trillion to $8.9 trillion—while the inflow of stablecoins to these services increased by 5.3%.

Peer-to-peer transactions are growing even faster. The volume of transfers between personal wallets within individual countries more than quadrupled—from $56.8 billion to $228.7 billion.

According to Chainalysis, stablecoins are becoming less dependent on speculative cycles in the crypto market and are gradually forming an independent international payment infrastructure.

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NBU Fined iPay 16.5 Mln UAH for Violations in Payment Market

The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) has fined iPay (UPR LLC), an online platform for money transfers and online payments, 16.51 million UAH for violating the laws governing the payment market, the regulator announced.

It is noted that the violations, identified as a result of off-site supervision, concerned, in particular, inadequate control over the quality and sufficiency of information accompanying payment transactions.

The company must pay the fine within five business days from the date it is notified of the decision by the NBU’s Committee on Supervision and Regulation of Banking Activities and Oversight of the Payment Infrastructure.

In addition, the regulator issued a written warning to iPay for violating requirements regarding the management and authorization system for financial payment service providers.

The company must rectify the identified violations and take measures to prevent their recurrence within no more than 30 calendar days from the date of receiving the decision.

The committee adopted the relevant decisions on September 2.

As previously reported, in September 2025, the NBU had already fined iPay 16.6 million UAH for violations in the area of financial monitoring, specifically deficiencies in risk assessment, internal controls, handling of customer data, and reporting. At the same time, the company received a written warning for errors in reporting and record-keeping.

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At first, banks fought against stablecoins, but now they are preparing to issue their own

According to Fixygen, U.S. banks—which until recently were warning about the threat stablecoins pose to the deposit system—are now exploring the possibility of issuing digital dollars themselves.

JPMorgan views a stablecoin as a complement to its existing JPM Coin tokenized bank deposit system, according to the Wall Street Journal.

At the same time, more than a dozen banks are discussing a shared infrastructure for issuing digital currencies. Bank of America and Wells Fargo are among the participants.

The reason is simple: if a portion of payments and corporate settlements shifts to USDT, USDC, and other blockchain-based instruments, traditional banks risk losing a portion of their deposits and fee-based business.

Therefore, they are trying to offer their own alternative.

In fact, three competing models are currently taking shape: private stablecoins such as USDT and USDC, bank-issued stablecoins and tokenized deposits, as well as future central bank digital currencies.

The winner of this race could capture a significant share of the new market for round-the-clock international payments and settlements involving tokenized assets.

https://www.fixygen.ua/news/20260901/spochatku-banki-borolisya-zi-steyblkoinami-a-teper-gotuyutsya-vipuskati-vlasni.html

 

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Payments made with crypto cards using stablecoins exceeded $1 billion per month for first time

According to Fixygen, stablecoins are gradually evolving from a primarily exchange-based instrument into a means of everyday payments.

In July, spending via stablecoin-linked payment cards exceeded $1 billion per month for the first time, according to Paymentscan data cited by Reuters.

RedotPay forecasts that by 2028, the volume of direct card payments in stablecoins could reach $50 billion per year.

The technology is spreading particularly rapidly in Latin America and Africa, where dollar-pegged stablecoins are used as a means of savings, international remittances, and access to the dollar payment system.

RedotPay already serves over 8 million users, and its clients’ annual transaction volume exceeds $14 billion, including account top-ups and card payments.

The main change is that users no longer need to view USDT or USDC as cryptocurrencies. They can hold digital dollars and make payments with a regular Visa or Mastercard, while the conversion takes place within the payment infrastructure.

However, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) remains skeptical. On August 28, BIS Governor Pablo Hernández de Cos stated that stablecoins are not yet a sufficiently reliable global payment system due to risks related to financial stability, anti-money laundering (AML), and the fragmentation of the monetary system.

https://www.fixygen.ua/news/20260901/platezhi-kriptokartkami-zi-stabilnimi-monetami-vpershe-perevishchili-1-mlrd-dolariv-na-misyats.html

 

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