An associate of the former head of the President’s Office, Andriy Yermak, Rostyslav Shurma, and the de facto manager of the money-laundering bank “Alliance,” Pavlo Shcherban, are actively scrubbing the internet of publications about the financial institution’s activities. This pertains to materials linking the bank to bribes, money laundering schemes, and protection from high-ranking officials.
We, for our part, are publishing material that is so bothersome to these controversial figures and which they are trying to remove from public access.
Recently, the media has regularly reported scandals involving the small bank “Alliance.” The most notorious of these is related to a bribe that was allegedly offered on behalf of the bank to detectives of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and prosecutors of the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) by Oleksiy Nosov, a lawyer from the Miller law firm, in a case concerning damages to “Ukrenergo.” Additionally, the media has reported on numerous fines imposed by the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) for violations of financial monitoring rules, failure to fulfill guarantee obligations to state companies, and submission of false financial reports.
And yet, the bank remains afloat. Why? The reason may lie in a secret patron—Deputy Head of the President’s Office, Rostyslav Shurma. Thanks to his close ties with Pavlo Shcherban, the chairman of the bank’s supervisory board, Shurma may be deflecting NBU attacks on “Alliance” and providing protection for the bank from law enforcement agencies.
The real master
Formally, according to the Unified State Register of Enterprises and Organizations and the data on ultimate beneficial owners submitted by “Alliance” to the National Bank, the main shareholder (“owner of substantial participation”) of the financial institution is Oleksandr Sosis, the former chairman of the board of Rinat Akhmetov’s ASKA insurance company. However, the identity of the person who truly makes significant decisions in the bank has long been known to the market. It is the chairman of the supervisory board, 40-year-old Pavlo Shcherban.
According to data from open sources, Shcherban has been working in the banking sector for about 18 years. He started as a senior economist in the retail lending sector at a branch of “Prominvestbank” in Kremenchuk. Later, he became the head of the dealing operations sector (stock market transactions) at the shady bank “Volodymyrskyi.” After the 2008-2009 crisis, Shcherban headed the dealing operations department at “Yuzhkombank,” a bank linked to Viktor Yanukovych Jr.’s friend from car racing, Ruslan Tsyplakov.
After the Revolution of Dignity, when “Yuzhok” was sent to the banking afterlife, Shcherban took the position of head of the interbank operations department at another “pocket laundry”—the bank “Apex.” He then briefly worked as the head of treasury at the money-laundering bank “Standard,” which also met its demise. In 2016, Shcherban first joined “Alliance” as a treasury dealer, but later moved to Serhiy Tigipko’s “Tascombank” as deputy head of treasury.
Since mid-2018 and up to the present, Pavlo Shcherban has been directly involved with “Alliance”—he served as deputy chairman and acting chairman of the board, and since August 2021, he has chaired the supervisory board. At the same time, Shcherban is also a significant shareholder of the bank: in July 2023, the Antimonopoly Committee allowed him to acquire over 25% of the institution’s shares, with the deal expected to be finalized in the coming weeks through a share issuance.
Sources in the banking market are convinced that, despite Oleksandr Sosis holding an undisputed majority stake in the bank, the real decisions within the structure are made by Pavlo Shcherban. Moreover, he also serves as the de facto “political umbrella,” protecting the institution from numerous claims by the regulator and potential interest from law enforcement regarding the not always “clean” activities of “Alliance,” including those related to servicing a significant portion of the gambling business, which is not always legal.
Shcherban’s confidence in life is bolstered by his close ties with Deputy Head of the President’s Office, Rostyslav Shurma. It is Shurma, with whom Shcherban likely became acquainted about ten years ago during the structuring of several shady deals, who guarantees the de facto untouchability of “Alliance” at a time when other financial institutions would have long been removed from the market. Failure to meet guarantee conditions, chronic disregard for NBU standards, especially regarding risk levels per client, corruption scandals, and fines for violating financial monitoring rules—all these factors should have long triggered temporary administration for the bank.
However, this “business for insiders” somehow still holds together. According to market participants, “Alliance” may serve as a primary shady bank for shadow cash flows, much like the state-owned “Ukrgasbank” once did. The difference is that, unlike the state financial institution, which was cleansed of corrupt officials and returned to respectable operations, no one is doing the same for “Alliance.”
A Jack-of-All-trades partner
What does Shurma have to do with this, besides his close ties with Shcherban? One might assume the answer lies in other, much more diversified business ventures of Shcherban, behind which—surprisingly—Shurma’s influence can be seen.
First, there is the gas extraction company “Viva Exploration,” which Shcherban formally owns together with geologist Serhiy Dumenko through the Cypriot firm IF Exploration Company Limited. According to data from specialized media, the company holds a license for geological exploration, including pilot industrial development with subsequent extraction of oil, natural gas, and condensate at the Staromizunska area in Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast, valid until 2033. Before the full-scale invasion, there were plans to restore old wells for oil and gas extraction. However, the search for rich deposits has not been successful. According to financial reports in the YouControl system, the company shows significant losses—about $1 million as of the end of 2023. But why does the company continue to invest? The answer may lie in the fact that the real investor in this business is not Shcherban, but his close associate Rostyslav Shurma.
The second interesting asset under Shcherban’s control, potentially backed by the Deputy Head of the President’s Office, is a recently acquired grain elevator in the city of Khorol, Poltava region (LLC “Alliance Elevator”). Despite its relatively small size and need for reconstruction, Shcherban and Shurma view this business as a starting point for greater integration into the agricultural sector, as the demand for grain and other agricultural product storage grows annually.
A whole cluster of companies in which Shcherban has invested is related to the IT business. Following the example of the founders of “Monobank,” Shcherban apparently aims to create a multidisciplinary IT team capable of servicing various sectors. Most of these firms specialize in banking products, though they also provide services to retail chains. This includes LLC “Alliance Digital” (IT specialists spun off into a separate firm from the bank), LLC “Asidzs,” LLC “APL,” and LLC “Motvel” (developments for the banking sector), where Shcherban is either the sole owner or partners with IT specialists. However, it is hard to doubt that such a high-tech cluster represents a good investment and success story for an experienced investor and public official like Rostyslav Shurma. His interest in digitizing many economic processes is well-known, as is his constant desire to “undermine” Deputy Prime Minister for Digital Transformation Mykhailo Fedorov. Thus, Shcherban’s group is a decent starting point for creating his own digital army.
In several other sectors, Shcherban and Shurma seem undecided. For instance, LLC “Tabakos Trade” (intended for scrap metal trading) and LLC “Navium Nafta” (tasked with importing and trading petroleum products domestically) remain inactive.
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All this diversity in business interests does not align with the role of the chairman of the supervisory board of a bank that has been in turmoil for months. Therefore, either “Alliance” is not a priority for Shcherban (which does not seem true), or the investments in all these varied businesses are pure venture capital (portfolio investments where the investor does not influence decision-making but receives passive income proportional to their share), behind which Shcherban himself may not even stand.
As for Rostyslav Ihorovych, sources claim that many conflict points have emerged around him. For journalists, this could become new topics for investigations, and for law enforcement agencies—new open cases.
