The Ministry of Finance of Ukraine and the government are making decisions on completing the formation of the new supervisory board of state-owned Sense Bank and quickly restoring its management, Ukrainian Finance Minister Serhiy Marchenko said.
"Our task is to quickly restore management of Sense Bank," the Finance Ministry chief told journalists.
He added that the ministry had also sent the National Bank of Ukraine information concerning the possible lack of impeccable business reputation of two members of Sense Bank's management board and is awaiting the regulator's decision.
Marchenko also said changes to legislation on corporate governance of state-owned banks had significantly limited the government's and Finance Ministry's ability as owner to make swift personnel decisions, even when it is necessary to respond to situations such as the latest investigation by the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) concerning Sense Bank. According to him, discussions are underway with international partners on how to improve this in the future.
As reported, representatives of Sense Bank, nationalized in 2023, have been involved in two high-profile NABU investigations, while the government has taken decisions on changes to its corporate governance and the National Bank has announced inspections of the bank.
Following NABU's latest investigation into the processing through Sense Bank of collateral for former Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko in violation of financial monitoring requirements, the government on July 19 decided to remove Sense Bank Supervisory Board Chairman Mykola Hladyshenko and initiated the removal of the bank's Management Board Chairman Oleksii Stupak.
On Aug 21, the government appointed former director of the NBU Banking Supervision Department Natalia Dehtiarova as the state's representative on the bank's supervisory board, and on Aug 31 appointed former PrivatBank CEO Gerhard Bösch as an independent board member. Both candidates still need to be approved by the National Bank.
On Sept 2, Deputy Finance Minister Yuriy Drahanchuk said at a meeting of the Verkhovna Rada's Temporary Special Commission on Economic Security that the Finance Ministry would soon conduct another selection process for an independent member of Sense Bank's supervisory board.
In addition, Ukrainian Prime Minister Serhiy Koretsky on Aug 20 instructed the Finance Ministry to step up preparations for the sale of Sense Bank so that the proceeds could be directed to defense. "The involvement of an international investment adviser in this process will help make the competition as transparent, competitive and, therefore, effective as possible," the prime minister said. According to him, the Finance Ministry and National Bank should simultaneously resolve all outstanding problems at the financial institution and ensure transparent and effective corporate governance.
Ukraine has repeatedly undertaken commitments under its programs with the International Monetary Fund to engage an adviser for the privatization of Sense Bank and another state-owned bank, Ukrgasbank, but has failed to meet them each time. The first deadline was the end of September 2024, and the latest one, under the new program, was the end of July this year.
This year, a tender was finally announced to engage a single adviser for both banks through March 1, 2029, with applications accepted until June 15. The adviser's remuneration will consist of a fixed component and a success fee of up to 3% of actual proceeds to the state budget from the sale of the shareholdings.
According to Interfax-Ukraine, the Finance Ministry plans to submit the tender results to the government for approval in the near future.
According to National Bank data, as of July 1, 2026, Ukrgasbank, with total assets of UAH 228.74 billion, ranked seventh, while Sense Bank, with UAH 157.73 billion, ranked ninth among Ukraine's 59 banks.
