NBU fines and NABU cases: Cronyism with Rostislav Shurma saves Pavel Shcherban’s Alliance Bank to fund Viva Exploration and Alliance Elevator

NBU fines and NABU cases: Cronyism with Rostislav Shurma saves Pavel Shcherban’s Alliance Bank to fund Viva Exploration and Alliance Elevator

Recent media coverage has repeatedly featured scandals tied to the small bank Alliance. The most notable of these concerns a bribe that, as the bank claims, lawyer Alexey Nosov of the Miller law firm was meant to hand over to NABU detectives and SAPO prosecutors as part of the investigation into damages caused to Ukrenergo.

In addition, the media wrote about numerous fines from the National Bank for violating financial monitoring rules, failure to fulfill obligations under guarantees to state-owned companies and filing false financial statements.

And the bank is still afloat. Why? The reason may lie in the secret patron – of the Deputy Head of the Office of the President Rostislav Shurma. Thanks to his close relationship with Pavel Shcherban –, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Bank –, Shurma can repel NBU attacks on the Alliance, as well as provide protection for the bank in front of law enforcement agencies.

Real owner

Formally, according to the Unified Register of Enterprises and Organizations, as well as according to data on the ultimate beneficial owners that Alliance Bank submits to the National Bank, the main shareholder ("owner of a significant participation") of the financial institution is Alexander Sosis, former chairman of the board of the ASKA insurance company Rinat Akhmetov. However, in fact, the personality of the person making really important decisions at the bank has long been known to the market. This is the chairman of the supervisory board, 40-year-old Pavel Pavlovich Shcherban.

According to data from open sources, Shcherban has been working in the banking sector for about 18 years. He started with the Prominvestbank branch in Kremenchug as a senior economist in the personal lending sector. Then he was the head of the dealing operations sector (stock market transactions) at the Vladimirsky scheme bank. After the crisis of 2008-2009, Shcherban heads the department of dealing operations at the Yuzhcombank Design Bureau of Viktor Yanukovych Jr.’s friend in auto racing, Ruslan Tsyplakov.

After the Revolution of Dignity, when Yuzhok was sent to the other world banking, Shcherban took the position of head of the interbank operations department in another "pocket sink" — Apex Bank, and after that he worked a little as the head of the treasury at the Standard laundering bank, which also acted. In 2016, Shcherban first entered Alliance Bank as a treasury dealer, but then moved to Sergei Tigipko’s Taskombank as deputy head of the treasury.

From mid-2018 to today, Pavel Shcherban is directly related to the “Alliance” – he was deputy chairman and acting Chairman of the Board, and since August 2021 – has headed the Supervisory Board. At the same time, Shcherban is also a major shareholder of the bank: in July 2023, the Antimonopoly Committee allowed him to acquire more than 25% of the institution’s shares, the agreement should be completed in these weeks, when the issue is carried out.

Sources in the banking market are convinced that, despite Alexander Sosis having an unconditional majority stake in the bank, real decisions in the structure are made by Pavel Shcherban. Moreover, it is also actually a "political roof" that protects the institution both from numerous claims from the regulator and from the potential interest of law enforcement agencies in the not always "clean" activities of the Alliance, in particular those related to servicing the lion’s share of the gambling business, and not always legal.

Confidence in Shcherban’s life is added by nepotism with the deputy head of the Presidential Office, Rostislav Shurma. It is Shurma, whom Shcherban probably met about ten years ago while structuring a number of scheme agreements, that guarantees the actual inviolability of Alliance Bank in conditions where other financial institutions would have been withdrawn from the market long ago. Failure to fulfill the conditions for guarantees, chronic disregard for the National Bank’s standards, especially in terms of the level of risk per client, corruption scandals and fines for violating financial monitoring rules – all these factors should have brought a temporary administration to the bank long ago.

However, this "business for our own" is still somehow holding up. According to market participants, Alliance can be the basic scheme bank for shadow flows, as the state-owned Ukrgasbank once was. Only, unlike the state financial institution, which was cleared of corrupt officials and returned to decent work, there is no one in the Alliance to do this

Partner for all trades

What does Shurma – have to do with it besides nepotism with Shcherban? It can be assumed that the answer should be sought in other – of Shcherban’s much more diversified business areas. Behind which –, oddly enough, – stick out the ears of Rostislav Igorevich.

Firstly, we are talking about the gas production company Viva Exploration, which Shcherban formally owns together with geologist Sergei Dumenko through the Cypriot company IF Exploration Company Limited. According to specialized media reports, the company holds a license for geological study, including pilot industrial development with subsequent production of oil, natural gas and condensate on Staromizunskaya Square in the Ivano-Frankivsk region, valid until 2033. By the beginning of the full-scale invasion, it was planned to restore old and sparkling old gases. However, the search for wells rich in deposits was unsuccessful. According to financial statements in the YouControl system, the company is showing deep losses – of about $1 million at the end of 2023. But why is the company still investing? The answer may be that the real investor in this business is not Shcherban, but his godfather Rostislav Shurma.

The second interesting asset at Shcherban’s disposal, behind which may be the deputy head of the Presidential Office –, is a recently acquired elevator in the city of Khorol, Poltava region (Alliance Elevator LLC). Despite its relatively small size and need for reconstruction, Shcherban and Shurma see this business as a start for greater integration into the agricultural industry, as the demand for storing grain and other agricultural products is growing every year.

The whole cluster of companies where Shcherban invested is connected with the IT business. At the same time, following the example of the founders of Monobank, Shcherban is obviously going to create a multidisciplinary IT team that can serve different areas. Firms mainly specialize in banking products, but also provide services to retail chains. We are talking about Alliance Digital LLC (brought to a separate company by the bank’s IT specialists), Asijs LLC, APL LLC and Motvel LLC (developments for the banking sector), where everywhere Shcherban is either himself or with IT partners. However, there is little doubt that the high-tech – cluster is a good investment and a success story for such an experienced investor and statesman as Rostislav Shurma. His interest in the digitalization of many processes in economics is known. But his constant desire to "sit out" Deputy Prime Minister for Digital Transformation Mikhail Fedorov is also known. And that’s why Shcherban’s group – this is a good start for creating your own digital army.

Новости по теме: В Burisma отвергли причастность своих сотрудников к даче взятки в Украине

In several more industries, Shcherban and Shurma are obviously undecided. For example, Tabakos Trade LLC (which should trade in scrap metal) and Navium Oil LLC, which will be responsible for the import and trade of petroleum products within the country, are vacant lots.

All this versatility in business interests does not fit into the functionality of the chairman of the bank’s supervisory board, who has been storming for several months now. Therefore, here either "Alliance" is not a priority for Shcherban (which does not look like the truth), or investments in all these motley businesses are pure venture (portfolio investments, when the investor does not influence decision-making, but receives passive income proportional to his share), behind which, perhaps, there is even a passive income.

As for Rostislav Yuryevich, sources claim that a lot of conflict points have formed around him. For journalists, this could become new topics for investigations, and for law enforcement agencies, – open cases.