During 2014−2016, the National Bank of Ukraine, as a regulator, declared 90 Ukrainian banks insolvent.
The first reason for this decision was the economic crisis caused by Russian aggression. The second was that most of the liquidated banks were “pocket”, that is, they were created to serve the core businesses (non-banking) of their owners and local authorities.
Despite the reform of the banking system during that period, such small banks still remain, but due to many violations of the law, they face the fate of their 90 predecessors. One of the first to enter the market is the Chernigov-based Polikombank, owned by the Tarasovtsy family of local developers. We'll tell you what's wrong with the bank and why its clients should know about it.
An illustrative example of a “pocket” bank is the Kharkov Megabank. It belonged to Viktor Subotin, director of the state-owned enterprise Turboatom. Taking advantage of its position as the head of one of the largest production facilities in Kharkov and throughout Ukraine, Megabank gradually accumulated the accounts of Turboatom, although the conflict of interest was obvious.
In addition, Megabank serviced the lion's share of the accounts of the Kharkov city administration, and over the years expanded its network to service almost all utility bills of the city of one and a half million. Kharkov residents may still remember that branches of this bank were scattered throughout the city, like the branches of Nova Poshta now. City residents could pay bills even at a small window at metro stations.
All this looked like a convenience to local authorities and people, but none of them suspected that the bank was gradually approaching the limit of solvency.
The scheme for using such banks is quite simple: the owners of the bank negotiate with local authorities and encourage people to invest public and private money, which is then issued in the form of loans to companies associated with the owners of this bank. Further, if everything goes well, the money is returned, and in the event of any crisis, the money disappears into the pockets of the bank owners. The NBU is trying not to allow banks to lend to related companies and individuals, in fact, because of precisely such risks, which is why many such banks ceased to exist. However, the scheme has not disappeared anywhere and is still in effect today, mainly in small regional banks.
Second stage for liquidation
According to sources in the NBU, the regulator is now carefully studying the situation in the Chernigov Polikombank. There are several reasons for this.
The first reason is the use of the same lending scheme to related companies and individuals.
According to the National Bank, Polikombank is owned by 39 people, and the largest shareholders are Alexander Tarasovets (45%), Yuri Tarasovets (23%) and Nikolai Tarasovets (4%) - two sons and a father, respectively.
The bank's assets as of January 1 of this year amounted to UAH 784 million, liabilities - UAH 492 million, bank capital - UAH 292 million, financial result for 2023 - 1.1 million after tax. Judging by these data, the bank looks relatively stable, but the financial result - less than 27 thousand dollars a year at the current exchange rate - is not able to support 39 shareholders. Simply put, such money does not make its owners rich, especially since in past years the bank did not make any profit at all. Then why does the Tarasovets family need a bank? To service its other businesses, that is, the bank was originally created precisely for this purpose, and then began to attract people’s money and is doing so now.
In 2020, the head of the family and Polikombank, Nikolai Tarasovets, ran for the Chernigov regional council, so his interviews were published in the local press (apparently, they were ordered, because they were very complimentary). In one of them, Mr. Tarasovets literally admitted that the bank was created specifically to serve the interests of related companies: “Together with local enterprises - Domobudivnyk, the Chernigov pasta factory, the Koryukov technical paper factory, the Siverianka company and others - we decided that it is necessary to create a Chernigov bank that will be able to quickly respond to the requests of producers in the region, taking into account the characteristics of their business and the market situation. Thus, in 1994, on the basis of the Chernigov branch of AvtoVAZbank, Polikombank was created, and the above-mentioned enterprises became shareholders and contributed to the authorized capital.”
That is, the bank was created by local enterprises, which was considered the norm in the 1990s. However, now this is considered a threat to any bank, and, by the way, Valery Kolomoisky precisely for this reason (one of many) lost his PrivatBank, since his financial institution lent to other businesses of Kolomoisky. Ironically, Tarasovets Sr. ran in the elections from the For Maybutne party, which is associated with Kolomoisky.
Tarasovets Sr. admitted that now there are local companies among the bank’s clients, but one of them is attracting attention - the Chernigov developer OSNOVA-BUD-7.
“For us, our main priority is financial support for local businesses, because this means jobs and prosperity for the residents of the region. Basically, we direct all the funds raised by the bank from the population to the development of the Chernihiv region,” he said and thereby confirmed that the money of the bank’s depositors goes to finance other businesses of Tarasovtsy.
Also, attention should be paid not only to OSNOVA-BUD-7, but also to the companies Chernigovgorstroy LLC and the Comfort residential complex: all of them are led by sons - Alexander and Yuri.
Considering that both sons are engaged in the construction business in Chernigov, it seems rather strange that the father was the head of the commission for the management and disposal of municipal property of the Chernigov Regional Council, and Yuri was the head of the land commission of the Chernigov City Council. If this is not a conflict of interest, then what is it?
Such a conflict has long been reported by Chernigov activist Alexander Gashpar: “If some deputies of the Chernigov city council, its secretary and the Chernigov mayor think that no one notices how they make decisions in the context of a conflict of interests: who is about the allocation of budgetary funds to their organization for carrying out certain measures, who are about allocating a plot of land to their brother or about developing a detailed plan for budget funds for the private structure of the same brother, etc., then they are mistaken and the employees of the legal department of the city council are mistaken, who believe that there is a conflict of interests the mayor, for example, exists only when it comes to his close persons, forgetting that private interest, according to the provisions of anti-corruption legislation, can be determined not only by personal and family, but also by friendly or other non-official relationships with physical or legal persons, including those arising in connection with membership or activities in public, political, religious or other organizations.”
Probably, Polikombank, at the expense of ordinary depositors, finances construction projects carried out by its shareholders. And it looks like it is the construction business, and not the bank, that feeds the Tarasovets family; the bank is only a tool that can be easily left if something happens. However, now the real estate market is going through its worst times, especially due to the war, Chernigov’s proximity to the border with the aggressor country and constant shelling of the city. Therefore, OSNOVA-BUD-7 found itself in a difficult situation, and there is a high probability that the developer’s problems will become the problems of Polikombank and, as a consequence, its investors.
Moreover, OSNOVA-BUD-7 is perhaps the only more or less significant client of the family bank, and both belong to the Tarasovets family.
Typical developer
In fact, problems haunt OSNOVA-BUD-7 constantly. Despite the fact that the father and his sons manage to obtain attractive land plots and attractive conditions, they are not always able to complete construction and sell the property without scandals.
OSNOVA-STROY-7 has carried out or is currently constructing on seven sites. At the same time, the building at st. Mazepa, 23, should be put into operation in 2021, but despite the fact that it has already been sold, construction has been frozen.
The Tarasovites had already received the buyers’ money for a house in the Masana area, but the brothers demanded additional payment, allegedly due to the rise in price of building materials, but in fact they violated the terms of the contracts with the buyers.
Second family
The ownership structure of OSNOVA-BUD-7 is also interesting. According to the declaration of Yuriy Tarasovets, submitted by him in 2023, he is the owner and received 1.5 million hryvnia in profit from the activities of this company. And the other two co-owners are Tatyana Vladimirovna Khomenko and Vladimir Ivanovich Khomenko: daughter and father. Mrs. Tatyana is the owner of the 4th largest block of shares in Polikombank, Mr. Vladimir is the 12th, and Dmitry Khomenko is Vladimir’s son and Tatyana’s brother, and he owns the 6th largest block of Polikombank. (Here it should be added that all 39 shareholders of Polikombank, without exception, are from Chernigov or the Chernigov region and family ties among the owners are quite wide.)
In essence, the bank and construction business are run by two families. And it is precisely this circumstance - the connection of the bank’s owners with other businesses - that worries the NBU, because in the event of problems with the main business, the problems will inevitably spread to the bank, which has obligations to thousands of other depositors.
However, this is not the only thing that worries government regulators.
Laundry
In April last year, news appeared on the NBU website, the significance of which only the bankers themselves could appreciate: “The National Bank applied influence measures to three banks and eleven non-bank financial institutions for violations in the field of financial monitoring and currency legislation.” Among the violators was Polikombank. What exactly did he violate?
Without disclosing all the details, the National Bank warned Polikombank in writing about violation of the requirements of paragraph one of the first part of Article 8 of the Law “On preventing and combating the legalization (laundering) of proceeds from crime, the financing of terrorism and the financing of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction” in terms of improper execution by banks responsibilities to develop, implement and update internal documents to prevent and combat money laundering.
That is, the NBU already knows that Polikombank may be laundering money or turning a blind eye to it, and there is a high probability that sooner or later sanctions will be introduced against Tarasovtsov’s bank: from searches to the seizure of accounts.
Independent observers also monitored Polikombank. But the National Rating Agency Rurik suspended the long-term credit rating of Polikombank, as well as the deposit reliability rating. This happened in 2016, precisely when the NBU withdrew the same 90 banks from the market. But the rating agency decided not to include Polikombank in its ratings in 2022: until now, deposits and loans from the Chernigov bank are not considered reliable. The reason that Polikombank was excluded from the reliability rating (there were 2 of 12 such banks in total) is quite banal: Tarasovtsov Bank stopped providing the agency with data on its activities. For a long time, Polikombank was recognized as reliable, but in recent years it began to hide information about itself, and, obviously, there were reasons for this. Even on its own website, Polikombank last updated data on assessing its own sustainability in 2021.
Who will get hurt?
Now the NBU has ordered Polikombank to carry out additional capitalization before the end of the year, since its collateral assets do not have a confirmed value, that is, it is unknown how much they cost and whether they are worth anything at all.
The second requirement is to restructure the insider loan portfolio, that is, the bank must receive real collateral from borrowers, and since such a borrower is OSNOVA-BUD-7, most likely neither the first nor the second conditions will be met.
All this gives the National Bank enough grounds to withdraw the bank from the market by liquidating it (nationalization is unlikely, since Polikombank is not systemic and does not have any significant value - precisely because of the dubious pool of borrowers).
At the same time, the liquidation of the bank will not affect the banking system, since Polikombank is really small both in terms of capital and liabilities, and in terms of the size of its own network - only 17 branches, which are located mainly in Chernigov and the region. However, it should be noted that through Polikombank pensions and salaries are paid to “public sector employees”, who will be forced to endure rather unpleasant moments until another bank takes over the obligation.
Meanwhile, Yuri Tarsovets is in the United States during the war, although he is a citizen of Ukraine and is 49 years old (conscription age), and his brother, 48-year-old Alexander, lives in Germany, sometimes visiting his homeland.
