Imagine a post office branch in a small town in Zakarpattia. Usually, grandmothers bring their pensions there and parcels from "Rozetka." But according to a National Bank of Ukraine inspection, from 2022 to 2023, 11.9 billion hryvnias in cash passed through this network of branches — and some of these operations occurred at night, when the doors should have been locked.
This is the main conclusion of an Ekonomichna Pravda article that reviewed the results of the NBU inspection. The regulator fined Ukrposhta 17.4 million hryvnias back in February 2024, and the company paid without objection. But the inspection details, now made public, raise more questions than the fine itself answers.
Cash that traveled faster than people
Six companies — including "Metapay," "Paybox," and "GlobalMoney" — deposited 11.4 billion hryvnias with Ukrposhta, much of it related to EasyPay and City24 payment terminal networks. According to the NBU's findings, these operations had characteristics typical of money laundering from sources of unknown origin.
The atypical nature is confirmed by details that formed a strange picture: one person apparently managed to deliver cash to branches in different regions in a single day. Large sums were withdrawn multiple times daily from individual terminals. And some 500-hryvnia banknotes had consecutive serial numbers — a sign that financial monitoring typically interprets as a red flag, not a coincidence.
Pensions that weren't really pensions
Ukrposhta's official explanation during the 2023 inspection sounded logical: the company was attracting cash to ensure pension and social assistance payments in regions close to combat zones. The problem is that the NBU found: a significant portion of the funds were received not in the east, but in western Ukraine — and instead of being used for payments, they were deposited into Ukrposhta's own accounts at Oschadbank.
According to Oschadbank data, from July 2022, the volume of cash that Ukrposhta deposited through western directorates increased dramatically: the Zakarpattia directorate saw a 64.5-fold increase, the Lviv directorate a 15-fold increase. This is no longer logistics for social payments near the front, but something else entirely.
A discount that cost 14 million
Ukrposhta's standard commission for accepting cash was 0.2%. For the six companies with suspicious operations, rates of 0.001% to 0.1% were applied — that is, 200 to 200 times lower than the standard. Overall, the company received 8.7 million hryvnias in commission, when it should have received 22.8 million hryvnias at the regular rate. The difference — 14.1 million hryvnias — was essentially a gift from the state enterprise to clients whose operations later raised questions with the regulator.
Two versions of one story
Ukrposhta General Director Ihor Smilyanskyy does not deny the fact of the operations, but rejects accusations of facilitating money laundering. According to his version, the company simply performed an cash collection function: accepting cash from entities already under NBU supervision — including terminals of Aibox Bank, which had the regulator's license at the time. He believes that the bank, not the post office, was primarily responsible for verifying the origin of funds.
The problem is that this explanation contradicts what the company told the NBU during the inspection itself — at that time, it was about social payments, not accepting business revenues. Smilyanskyy explains the reduced commission as common practice for large clients. And in response to accusations regarding the illegal origin of funds, he simply states: neither law enforcement nor the NBU officially informed the company that the money was stolen.
After the NBU inspection, Ukrposhta stopped accepting cash revenue from businesses — meaning the company has already closed the very practice that raised questions, even without acknowledging the problem.
Context that's hard to ignore
This story emerges against the backdrop of a prolonged conflict between Ukrposhta and the National Bank: the company wants a banking license, while the NBU demands Smilyanskyy's dismissal — a demand the government has yet to fulfill. Danylo Hetmantsev, head of the Verkhovna Rada's financial committee, spoke about the personal nature of the confrontation between NBU Chairman Andriy Pyshny and Smilyanskyy. According to Ekonomichna Pravda's sources, over potential losses to the state company, the SBU allegedly opened criminal proceedings and seized documents from the NBU; the service did not respond to the outlet's request.
The question is simple: will this inspection become a catalyst for real changes in Ukrposhta's corporate governance, or will it remain just another episode in an institutional war where facts about billions in cash lose to the personal ambitions of its leaders.
