Fintechs for Ukraine
How The European Fintech Community is Stepping Up to Support Ukraine
Dear reader.
Words that feel encouraging are hard to come by these days. Yet during this hard time, we should try to put the good in the foreground and underline initiatives that want to make a difference.
The response of the tech community to help a nation in need deserves to be highlighted. So is the strong local fintech community and some outstanding success stories of tech startups.
Enjoy reading.
Peace.
❤️🕊🇺🇦
Fintech Community Joins Forces In Support Of Ukraine
Photo by Audrius Sutkus on Unsplash
The European Tech startup ecosystem has been playing an important role in supporting Ukraine during this hard time. Among the help provided are collecting donations, helping with relocating and obtaining visas, creating remote work platforms, and matching tech professionals and companies to NGOs to help digitize their work.
In addition to all these initiatives, many FinTech companies responded by providing free services for Ukrainian citizens, lowering the costs for international payments, or simplified access to financial services abroad. Here are some of them:
One of the first Challenger banks to take measures was Revolut by waiving transfer fees for sending money to a Ukrainian bank account. The company has also enabled millions of its customers worldwide to instantly donate to the Red Cross Ukraine Appeal. Over the space of seven days since the announcement 300,000 customers donated in support of victims of the war in Ukraine amounting to € 10 million total. Additionally, Revolut is enabling those who have crossed its borders to access their money by linking the app to their Ukrainian bank account and providing access to additional currencies. To ensure quick and easy access, Revolut has eased many of the requirements needed to set up an account as well as waiving top-up fees.
The Dutch challenger bunq allows Ukrainian citizens to open a free bunq account to easily make transactions outside Ukraine. The account will be operable for up to 3 months and allows access to a number of features like the bunq physical and virtual card, local currency payments, four local European IBANs and low-cost money transfer in partnership with Wise. The possibility to open a free bank account is a result of the initiative funded by bunq together with other tech entrepreneurs under the name People for People. The non-profit organization also started processing visa applications for highly skilled migrants, extensions and families to try to get them into the Netherlands on a work visa.
Monese started to offer EUR and GBP accounts with no fees for Ukrainian refugees who need a local account in the EEA or UK to send or receive payments. With Monese people receive a multicurrency account with IBAN that supports SEPA payments and a physical and virtual card. Monese will refund all the fees for new and existing customers with a Ukrainian ID.
Money transfer giant Wise offers online banking services to Ukrainian refugees to hold, receive and spend money in multiple currencies. The Wise account can be set up for free, however, ordering a physical card comes with a fee. The company is also reducing fees for sending money to Ukraine and is waiving fees for donations to charities via the platform.
Crypto platform Bitpanda is enabling users to donate the crypto assets of their choice to the newly set up Emergency Response Fund to provide humanitarian support to people affected by the war. The funds will be converted into euros without any fees and donated to selected organizations on weekly basis.
Founded by virtual IBAN provider Monneo, Fintechs For Ukraine initiative has so far rounded up 17 members including Railsbank, Coinbase, ComplyAdvantage, and Payabl. The initiative aims to encourage businesses in the fintech sector to donate and raise funds for those affected by the crisis in Ukraine, with donations going directly to Save the Children´s Ukraine Appeal. Monneo guarantees no fees charged for donated funds, no mark-ups added on the exchanges between crypto and fiat currency donations and covers any third-party transaction fees, which may be applied to some donations.
Digital bank Zopa said it will sponsor 50 UK work visas and provide financial support to Ukrainian professionals in the field of engineering, technology, data analytics as well as consumer financial services. It will also provide a relocation allowance of one month’s salary to support moving costs on receipt of the right to work in the UK.
The latest addition to the list is the payment giant PayPal which enabled the transfer of funds to Ukrainian accounts at home and abroad. Until now Ukrainian PayPal account holders could use the payment platform to send money out of the country. Now with the extended service, they can receive funds in their PayPal Wallet and make transfers to their bank account by linking an eligible debit or credit card. Paypal is also temporarily waiving fees for customers sending funds to Ukrainian Paypal accounts or receiving funds into Ukrainian Paypal accounts. Xoom, PayPal’s international remittance service, is also waiving transaction fees for payments sent to recipients in Ukraine.
Other Tech initiatives:
The Estonian tokenization platform Single.Earth launched a #StandWithUkraine NFT collection of which sales the proceeds will support the work of the International Committee of the Red Cross. The collection contains over 2000 unique artworks, that represent the Ukrainian people holding on to their country’s freedom.
Tech To The Rescue is a voluntary movement of tech companies to help social impact organizations around the world implement digital solutions to scale up. The organization has launched a #TechforUkraine initiative, to help charities in the country digitize and scale up the impact they’re having. Tech companies can help NGOs build systems for resource distribution, payments and donations, secure messaging and much more. So far, they matched 24 NGOs with tech companies and are working on 45 projects. Some of these projects have gone live, including a platform that collects verified offers of support for Ukrainian refugees, a map in Ukrainian that informs users about humanitarian and medical aid, and a charitable NFT collection.
Ukraine Tech Collective initiative is "kind of an “NGO version of maternity cover” where international software developers are matched with job vacancies left by Ukrainian software engineers who are involved in the war effort. The initiative aims to make sure developers in Ukraine continue to get paid and small businesses can stay operational.
Lifesaver, a UK cleantech startup, and Techfugees, the tech trade non-profit geared toward helping refugees globally, are working together to donate and ship thousands of pre-charged power banks to Poland and directly to some Ukrainian cities, including Lviv, in order to ensure access to mobile phones, for example in regions when power has been cut off.
The Fintech Ecosystem in Ukraine
The local Fintech environment should not be overlooked when talking about Ukraine.
With the support of the Ministry of Digital Transformation Ukraine has become a hub for fintech innovators and is currently ranked 45 among 131 countries in the Global Innovation Index.
There are about 150 fintech companies in Ukraine. The most popular operating segments are technology and infrastructure, payments and money transfer, mobile wallets, personal and consumer lending.
Picture source: Ukrainian Association of FinTech and Innovation Companies
Here are the biggest players:
🏦 Neobanking
Monobank is the first mobile-only bank in Ukraine with over 4 million clients. Founded in 2017, the challenger bank offers debit accounts in UAH, USD and EUR, business accounts for self-employed, children’s bank accounts, overdraft features, deposits, savings, installments, P2P payments, generous cashback and a smart mobile app with gamification elements. Monobank uses neural networks for image recognition and gradient boosting that evaluate over 2000 parameters from customer’s telephone number and IP address to the speed of filling out the application form for credit risk analysis. Monobank founders have also launched a credit app called The Credit Thing in the UK. Its potential client base are people who are unable to get a loan from major British banks. Except for those with short credit history, these may be freelancers or self-employed, who have an irregular income.
💳 Payments
IBOX is a leading payment terminal provider in Ukraine. The company allows customers to transfer money between bank accounts, top-up prepaid cards and mobile accounts, pay for utilities and transportation, pay off debts to various credit providers, pay taxes and fines, top-up gaming and social media accounts, and more.
EasyPay is the largest non-banking operator of financial services in Ukraine. EasyPay has an integrated network that allows you to make payments through terminals, the Internet and mobile applications. Today, more than 15 million Ukrainians pay for more than 3,500 services with EasyPay. EasyPay is also developing individual online payment solutions for businesses. The merchant payment system, which counts about 1,400 partner providers, provides personal account options, payment return mechanics, reporting, transaction monitoring, payment notifications and investigation of the reasons for transaction failures.
💰 Lending
Moneyveo is the leader of the Ukrainian microcredit market. The company offers affordable and fast card loans online. Moneyveo positions itself as a service with transparent lending terms and innovative products. More than 6 million customers have already used the service and the company has issued more than 4 million loans worth more than € 400 million.
⛓ Cryptocurrencies
Kuna is the first crypto exchange in the region. The exchange serves over 300,000 users, having over 50,000 active traders. However the company itself is certified in the UK, the platform offers over 30 trading pairs, accepting three fiat currencies (UAH, USD, and RUB). The company is also developing UAX stablecoin pegged to Ukrainian hryvnia.
⚙️ Infrastructure
Neofin is a software provider of innovative credit and banking solutions designed for banks, retailers, lenders, telecom operators, medical institutions, real estate agencies, car sellers, and more. Their unique fintech product called NeoFin Core is a modular system that consists of client verification, API for integration with partners, automatic blacklisting, AI scoring system, risk assessment, record tracking, customer service scenarios, portfolio management, loyalty program, customer dashboard, website constructor and marketing techniques.
Tech Startups you probably didn’t know originate in Ukraine
Despite Ukraine´s small startup industry, many notable companies come from this region. Ukrainian venture-backed startups saw $33.8 million in investment last year, according to data by Crunchbase. The country is home to an estimated 200,000 tech workers and has talent outposts for many foreign companies.
Here are the most outstanding success stories of them:
🚀 Grammarly
Grammarly, is an AI-powered, cloud-based proofreading tool founded in Ukraine. Their real-time writing assistance helps 30 million people and 30,000 teams write more clearly and effectively. The desktop application can be used on apps such as Microsoft Office, Slack, Discord, Jira and more. Grammarly recently announced the launch of Grammarly for Developers with the rollout of its Text Editor SDK, which enables programmers to embed Grammarly text editing functionality into any web application, giving developers access to the full power of Grammarly automated editing with a couple of lines of code. 🔎 Explore Grammarly
🚀 GitLab
Ukraine-founded tech company GitLab has already earned its unicorn status by being valued at $ 6 billion with more than 30 million estimated registered users and around 1500 employees working remotely in 65 countries. GitLab automates the process of writing code, detects bugs, and connects specialists that work on different parts of the project, from development to operation. 🔎 Explore GitLab
🚀 PetCube
Petcube produces gadgets for pet owners. After successfully crowdfunding their idea via Kickstarter in 2014 they won the European competition as “The best hardware startup” and operate now worldwide. Petcube’s device allows owners to look for, communicate, and play with pets via a mobile app and the Internet. It consists of a camera, a laser pointer, a microphone and a speaker. 🔎 Explore Petcube
🚀 Preply
Preply is a tutoring marketplace for language learning that matches students with tutors that are best for their specific learning needs, weighing over 400 parameters before connecting two within a marketplace. Preply also helps teachers, whether they are self-employed, part-time or full-time employees, find new students and create lifelong learning processes. The Company's success can be measured by already more than 10 million booked lessons and 40,000 vetted tutors. Preply supports 50 different languages, including Spanish, English, French, as well as niche languages such as Icelandic, Tibetan and Catalan. 🔎 Explore Preply
🚀 Readdle
Readdle, a iOS productivity app builder, is one of the better-known bootstrapped startups out of Ukraine. Some of the most popular apps from Readdle include PDF Expert, Spark email, Documents, Scanner Pro, and Calendars. Readdle has grown into an international company a while ago, with people employed in 11 countries. 🔎 Explore Readdle
🚀 Reface
The Kyiv founded company Reface is a leader in applying artificial intelligence and machine learning for personalized content creation and uses a technology called deepfake. Reface is better known as the “face-swapping video app”, where users can swap their own face into their chosen source content like movie or music video snippets, but also gifs and memes. In the first 14 months since going live, Reface had 100 million installs. In December 2021, Reface partnered with one of the world’s biggest film studios, Warner Bros., to work on a global advertising campaign for its movies. 🔎 Explore Reface
🚀 MacPaw
The software company MacPaw is responsible for Mac apps like Setapp and CleanMyMac, which help to clean, speed up and protect Mac users’ devices. MacPaw‘s active user base exceeds 30 million worldwide. Every fifth Mac on Earth has at least one app by MacPaw. Its headquarters is in Kyiv, Ukraine, with offices in San Francisco, USA and Cork, Ireland. 🔎 Explore MacPaw
