Corruption allegations, multi-billion scandals, and shadow influence on the NBU: a new high-profile conflict is unfolding around Alliance Bank and its likely informal leader Pavlo Shcherban. While law enforcement investigates the withdrawal of funds from Ukrenergo, information has appeared online about Shcherban’s attempts to “buy” the regulator’s loyalty through NBU Deputy Governor Serhiy Nikolaychuk. Is this tandem really driven by a desire to change the leadership of the National Bank, and what “scrubbed” connections might lead to the high offices on Bankova Street?
The StopCor team investigated.
Recently, the Telegram channel “Joker” published a series of posts containing loud accusations against NBU First Deputy Governor Serhiy Nikolaychuk and Alliance Bank employee Pavlo Shcherban. The channel’s author claims that Nikolaychuk allegedly covers for Shcherban and receives $150,000 monthly from him for “protection” within the NBU.
In addition, the publications claim that over the past six months, Serhiy Nikolaychuk and Pavlo Shcherban have allegedly been organizing information attacks on NBU Governor Andriy Pyshnyi, whom they privately call “the Deaf.” The channel’s author also writes that Nikolaychuk is spreading information about Pyshnyi’s possible dismissal and is positioning himself for the post of NBU head.
Alliance Bank: a history of scandals worth billions of hryvnias
Alliance Bank is small in size, but in terms of the number of scandals, it can rival many larger market players. The loudest story is linked to the case of the misappropriation of funds from NEC Ukrenergo, which is being investigated by the NABU.
According to the NABU, the scheme worked as follows. In autumn 2021, Alliance Bank issued bank guarantees worth almost UAH 2 billion to United Energy.
The company is linked by market participants and the media to the orbit of Ihor Kolomoiskyi. The mechanism of a bank guarantee is simple: if the buyer cannot pay for the goods, the bank pays. This principle underpins trust in such instruments worldwide. However, in March 2022, United Energy failed to pay Ukrenergo for the electricity received, as stated on the NABU website.
When the state-owned company turned to the bank to fulfill its guarantee obligations, Alliance refused to pay, citing formal grounds. As a result, the state suffered losses amounting to hundreds of millions. Depending on the calculation method and inclusion of penalties, the amount ranges from UAH 700 million to UAH 1.7 billion.
The NABU investigation revealed another interesting detail: the volume of guarantees issued significantly exceeded the credit risk limits per client. That is why the defendants in the criminal proceedings include not only the management of United Energy and Ukrenergo officials, but also the bank’s management. Investigators paid particular attention to the bank’s chairwoman, Yuliya Frolova. According to law enforcement, it was her decisions to issue the guarantees that may have caused the state’s losses. Frolova is currently abroad, and the NABU has put her on an international wanted list.
However, the Ukrenergo story is far from the only scandal surrounding the bank. In 2024, another high-profile case erupted. Oleksiy Nosov, a lawyer at the law firm Miller who represented Alliance Bank, was charged with attempting to pay a bribe of $200,000. According to investigators, the attempt was aimed at influencing the course of the investigation and having the case transferred to another law enforcement agency.
The bank categorically denies any involvement in these actions. However, it is hard to believe that such a risky operation could have been carried out solely on the lawyer’s personal initiative without the client’s knowledge. This question remains one of the key issues in the case.
Against this backdrop, a logical question arises: who stands behind a bank that has been involved in high-profile scandals, multi-billion court disputes, and criminal proceedings for years, yet continues to operate without significant consequences for its business?
Scrubbed mentions and inconvenient connections: what does the history of Shcherban and Shurma hide?
Formally, the largest shareholder of Alliance Bank is Oleksandr Sosis.
However, among bankers it has long been no secret that Pavlo Shcherban has decisive influence over the institution’s activities. Moreover, he is said to be the person who provides the bank with protection from the regulator’s claims and excessive attention from law enforcement to the institution’s operations. It is not only about his position or shareholding. His main asset is said to be his close ties with former Deputy Head of the Presidential Office Rostyslav Shurma.
Why does Shurma come into it? The answer, it seems, should be sought in the banker’s other business projects. And interestingly, the influence of Rostyslav Shurma is visible in many of them.
First of all, it concerns the gas production company Viva Exploration. Formally, its owners are Shcherban and geologist Serhiy Dumenko through the Cypriot company I.F. Exploration Company Limited.
The company holds a license for geological exploration and oil and gas production on the Staromizunska area in Ivano-Frankivsk region until 2033. Before the full-scale war, plans were to restore old wells and increase production there. However, the project did not deliver the expected results. Moreover, financial statements show losses of about one million dollars as of the end of 2023.
At the same time, investments in the company somehow do not stop. This raises a logical question: is Shcherban really the main investor here, and not his “godfather” Rostyslav Shurma?
Another asset that may point to the interests of the Deputy Head of the Presidential Office is an elevator in Khorol, Poltava region, registered to Alliance Elevator LLC. Although the facility needs reconstruction and is not among the major market players, it appears to be viewed as a first step toward a larger presence in the agricultural sector. Especially since demand for grain storage in Ukraine remains consistently high.
As “Rozsliduvach” writes, a separate area is IT business. Around Shcherban, a whole pool of companies has formed: Alliance Digital, Asidgs, APL, and Motvel. Some of them develop products for the banking sector, while others work with retail chains and digital services. It is here that Shurma’s possible interest can be traced. He has long been associated with promoting digital solutions in the economy and ambitions to strengthen his own influence in the field of digital transformation. In that case, Shcherban’s IT assets may not be just a business, but the basis for creating his own ecosystem of digital projects.
Rozsliduvach hints that this motley business empire fits poorly with the role of the chairman of the supervisory board of a bank that has been going through difficult times for a long time. Therefore, two options are possible: either Alliance Bank is not Shcherban’s key asset, or a significant part of these projects is merely an investment portfolio in which he acts not as a manager but as a passive investor. And then another question arises: whose funds are actually behind these assets?
However, information about Rostyslav Shurma’s connection is not so easy to find on the Internet. After all, strangely enough, all sites have, as they say, been “scrubbed.” This is what the search information looks like:
And after opening the page, it is already different. That is, all information about the possible connection between Pavlo Shcherban and Rostyslav Shurma has effectively disappeared from public access.
Hontareva, Rozhkova, and Nikolaychuk: continuity of interests
Another interesting figure in this story is current NBU Deputy Governor Serhiy Nikolaychuk. His name was also mentioned by the Telegram channel “Joker,” calling Nikolaychuk “a person of Hontareva and Rozhkova.”
Valeriya Hontareva also does not hide her positive attitude toward Nikolaychuk. In an interview with Glavcom, she called his appointment “the best appointment of the National Bank in the last two years” and one of Ukraine’s best macroeconomists.
“I believe this is the best appointment the National Bank has made in the last two years. Because Serhiy is one of the best macroeconomists in Ukraine,” Hontareva noted.
Interestingly, Nikolaychuk did work at the National Bank during the period when Valeriya Hontareva and Kateryna Rozhkova held key positions in the regulator.
In 2025, Serhiy Nikolaychuk replaced Kateryna Rozhkova on the NBU Board. And this is not a story about a new person in the system. Before that, they had worked side by side for more than ten years, going through changes of National Bank governors, governments, and presidents. Perhaps that is why Rozhkova’s words that she worked best during the times of Hontareva and Smoliy sound quite different today.
Thus, he remains one of the few high-ranking NBU officials who manages to retain influential positions regardless of changes in the regulator’s leadership and the country’s political power.
So, the information that appeared on the Telegram channel “Joker” probably exposes the state of affairs in the financial sector: does the Nikolaychuk–Shcherban tandem work to remove Andriy Pyshnyi from the post of NBU Governor?
The multi-billion hryvnia Ukrenergo case, the suspicion of an attempt to transfer a $200,000 bribe, Pavlo Shcherban’s business connections, mentions of Rostyslav Shurma, and the accusations published by the Telegram channel “Joker” against Serhiy Nikolaychuk form one big picture. How truthful individual claims are and who really stands behind these processes must be established by the competent authorities. However, it is already obvious today that more questions than answers remain around Alliance Bank and the persons associated with it.
