Ukraine: Building the Future of Finance During a War

The following showcases the 2026 developments of fintech and wider digital landscape of Ukraine as presented by The Fintech Times. There are few harsher tests of digital finance than a missile attack. Electricity can disappear. Telecommunications networks can be damaged. Millions of people can suddenly move to another city or another country. Businesses close, government expenditure surges and financial institutions must continue operating through circumstances for which conventional business-continuity plans were never designed. Ukraine has experienced all of this. Yet its financial system has continued functioning. Banks remain operational. Ukrainians routinely manage money through smartphones. Government and financial services can be accessed remotely through digital identification, while one of Europe’s most successful mobile-first banking platforms now serves around 10 million customers. And remarkably, financial modernisation has continued. Ukraine introduced instant transfers through its central-bank payment infrastructure, launched open banking in last year and is now adapting financial regulation increasingly towards European Union (EU) standards. In 2026, Ukraine’s fintech story is therefore about considerably more than innovation. It is about resilience. War has changed almost every economic calculation Before Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, Ukraine possessed one of Eastern Europe’s largest economies, supported by agriculture, metals, manufacturing, IT services and an increasingly sophisticated technology sector. The war transformed that picture. Ukraine’s economy contracted by almost 29 per cent in 2022 before returning to growth, while enormous defence requirements and reconstruction needs fundamentally altered public finances. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) expects economic growth of only around 1.0 to 1.6 per cent this year, reflecting Russia’s continuing war, intensified attacks on critical infrastructure and other external pressures. Inflation is projected to average approximately 8.9 per cent. Kyiv remains the country’s principal financial and technology centre, with major banks including PrivatBank, Oschadbank, Raiffeisen Bank Ukraine and Universal Bank. Yet discussing Ukraine simply through gross domestic product (GDP) figures misses something important. The country’s financial system has had to operate while the country itself is fighting for survival. Ukraine was digital before the invasion Ukraine’s digital resilience did not emerge accidentally after 2022. The foundations were already there. The country had developed a sophisticated technology sector and rapidly growing digital-banking culture before the full-scale invasion. Perhaps the most recognisable example is monobank. Launched in 2017 in cooperation with Universal Bank, monobank built its proposition around something that was still relatively unusual in the region: banking without conventional branches. Customers could open and manage accounts through their smartphones, transfer money, manage cards, receive cashback and access other financial products through the application. By 2026, monobank says it serves around 10 million customers. For a country with a population substantially reduced by displacement and migration since 2022, that scale is extraordinary. More importantly, it demonstrates that Ukrainians were already comfortable with remote financial services when physical access to those services suddenly became considerably more difficult. Digital identity became financial infrastructure Banking is also connected with Ukraine’s wider digital-government transformation. The BankID system of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU – central bank) allows individuals to verify their identities remotely using their existing relationship with a participating financial institution. That identity can subsequently be used to access financial, government, administrative and commercial services online. BankID can also be used to authorise access to Diia, Ukraine’s flagship digital-government application. This becomes particularly valuable during wartime. A displaced person does not necessarily have to return to their home city to prove who they are or access particular services. Digital identity effectively allows parts of the state and financial system to travel with the individual. In January this year, the NBU updated BankID’s regulatory framework to align it more closely with Ukraine’s electronic-identification legislation and the EU’s eIDAS framework. That European connection is becoming increasingly important. Ukraine now has instant payments too The infrastructure underneath banking has also changed. Ukraine upgraded the National Bank’s System of Electronic Payments (SEP) to ISO 20022 and 24/7 operation. Instant credit transfers subsequently enabled money to move between accounts within 10 seconds, with both payer and recipient receiving confirmation almost immediately. The importance extends beyond speed. Ukraine wants its payment infrastructure increasingly aligned with European standards, including eventual integration with the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA). For millions of Ukrainians living elsewhere in Europe, businesses trading with EU customers and a future economy increasingly integrated with the European single market, reducing friction around cross-border payments could have enormous long-term importance. Fintech policy is therefore becoming part of European integration. Open banking arrived during the war Perhaps the clearest example is open banking. Ukraine officially introduced its open-banking framework from August last year. Under the system, customers can authorise approved third-party providers to access account information or initiate payments through specialised APIs. Banks and other account-servicing payment providers are required to provide the interfaces necessary for authorised fintech providers to connect securely and access customer-permissioned information in real-time. The potential consequences are substantial. A consumer could eventually see accounts held across different banks inside one application. Fintech companies can develop financial-management products around customer-permissioned data. Lenders could potentially use richer information to assess borrowers, while payment-initiation providers can create alternatives to conventional card-based transactions. Ukraine is effectively implementing infrastructure inspired by European PSD2-style financial architecture while simultaneously fighting a major war. That juxtaposition says much about the country’s fintech ambitions. Fintech goes beyond monobank Ukraine’s fintech ecosystem is also broader than digital banking. One interesting example is NovaPay. Part of the NOVA group associated with Nova Poshta, NovaPay combines financial services with one of Ukraine’s most important logistics networks. It provides transfers, IBAN payments, business accounts, acquiring, salary services and lending alongside financial services linked directly with parcel delivery. The model demonstrates how fintech can emerge from outside conventional banking. A logistics company already interacting with millions of consumers and businesses possesses something extremely valuable: distribution. Financial services can subsequently be embedded around that existing relationship. This past March, the National Bank again classified NovaPay among Ukraine’s important payment systems. Other Ukrainian fintech and financial-technology names have emerged across payments, lending, financial software and cryptocurrency, supported by the country’s much larger technology ecosystem. The smartphone has also become a fundraising tool War has given digital payments another purpose. Since 2022, Ukrainians have used banking applications and online platforms extensively for donations, humanitarian fundraising and support for the country’s defence. Small contributions can be collected from enormous numbers of people within hours. The phenomenon demonstrates something that conventional fintech statistics rarely capture. Digital financial infrastructure does not simply make commerce more efficient. It can become part of civil society. Ukraine’s mature digital-banking culture made it possible to mobilise money quickly at precisely the moment when speed became most important. Cybersecurity is not theoretical in Ukraine The war has simultaneously made cybersecurity one of the country’s most important financial risks. For most banks, cyber resilience involves defending against criminals. Ukraine must also consider sophisticated attacks connected with a hostile state. Financial institutions, government systems, telecommunications providers and critical infrastructure have all operated within an environment of persistent cyber threats. The National Bank consequently identifies cybersecurity of payment and financial-market infrastructure as an important strategic priority. Ukraine’s broader financial-sector strategy also emphasises regulatory technology, supervisory technology and data-driven supervision alongside fintech development. For Ukrainian fintech companies, resilience is therefore not simply a regulatory requirement. It is an operating reality. Reconstruction could create fintech’s biggest opportunity Eventually, the conversation will shift from wartime resilience towards reconstruction. The scale will be enormous. Homes, roads, electricity networks, businesses, factories and entire communities will require rebuilding. Financial technology could play several roles. Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) will need working capital. International investors will need transparent financial infrastructure. Insurance and risk products will need to evolve, while digital identity and financial data could help lenders assess businesses and individuals whose conventional financial histories were disrupted by war. Payments between Ukraine and the European Union (EU) will also become increasingly important as accession progresses. The IMF argues that Ukraine’s longer-term transition should focus on creating a dynamic market-based economy aligned with its EU accession objectives, alongside improvements to governance, investment conditions and financial inclusion. Fintech could consequently become part of rebuilding the economy rather than merely rebuilding the financial sector. In summary Ukraine’s fintech story would already have been impressive without the war. It produced one of Europe’s most successful mobile-first banking platforms, built sophisticated digital-government infrastructure and created a population unusually comfortable managing financial lives through smartphones. What happened after February 2022 changed the meaning of that infrastructure. Digital banking allowed people to access money when physical branches became difficult to reach. BankID helped services remain accessible remotely. Payment systems continued functioning, while instant payments and open banking were introduced even as the war continued. Ukraine is now simultaneously fighting, rebuilding and integrating with Europe. Its fintech sector is doing much the same. Many countries talk about building resilient digital financial systems. Ukraine has been forced to discover what that actually means.