The App Is “Monobank”; the Bank Holding the License Is Universal Bank

Monobank, used through a smartphone app, is a widely used financial service in Ukraine. Its website describes it as “Ukraine’s first branchless banking (bankinh).” So who actually holds the banking license, and how large is it in figures? This article separates the publications of the National Bank of Ukraine and the Deposit Guarantee Fund from the company’s own statements, and looks at the picture as of September 2026. It does not cover how to open or use an account.

The Name of a Bank, or the Name of a Service?

The “About Us” page of Monobank’s website describes Monobank as “a retail product of Universal Bank JSC (АТ «УНІВЕРСАЛ БАНК»), created in partnership with the IT team mono.” At the bottom of the page are listed the National Bank license (No. 92), the number in the state register of banks (No. 226), and membership in the Deposit Guarantee Fund.

In the National Bank’s own bank search on its website, too, the license is held by Universal Bank (National Bank ID 322001, legal entity registration number 21133352). In the National Bank’s public data on its list of banks, the bank license is No. 92, and the date registered as a bank is January 20, 1994. As of September 2026, the National Bank lists this bank as “solvent,” a “privately owned bank,” a “participant in the Deposit Guarantee Fund,” and a “systemically important bank.” As the ultimate owner with an indirect significant stake, it names one person, Serhii Tihipko.

The app is developed by an IT company separate from the bank. In a November 2025 interview, the developer group explained that it created its first company, Fintech Band, in 2017, and developed Monobank as a retail app for Universal Bank.

On this division of roles, National Bank Governor Andriy Pyshnyi stated, in an interview with the English-language Kyiv Independent published on July 3, 2026, that the development company is not subject to National Bank supervision. He went on to state that Universal Bank’s business model is built on “third-party risk” that relies on an outside company, and explained that the National Bank, as part of its cooperation with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), has set new requirements for banks to manage third-party risk.

Old Name, Current Name

What has changed is the name on the development side. The development company was long known as “Fintech Band,” but in the 2025 interview it explained that it is now part of “Fintech-IT Group.” The service name “Monobank” and the name of the license-holding Universal Bank have not changed.

“Branchless Banking” and the National Bank’s Figures

In the National Bank’s published figures on the number of bank branches (as of July 1, 2026), Universal Bank has 14 active branches: 11 in Kyiv city, 2 in Lviv Oblast, and 1 in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast. All banks nationwide have 4,754 branches; PrivatBank, for example, has 1,050.

“Branchless” is the company’s way of saying that the Monobank service does not presuppose a physical teller counter. The license-holding bank itself does have a small number of branches. The National Bank notes, incidentally, that it will stop publishing and updating this table of branch numbers in the future.

Universal Bank in Figures

“Largest Online Bank”: Compared to What?

The National Bank’s statistics have no category of “online bank” or “neobank.” The term “largest online bank” depends on which banks are counted as online banks, and is not an official ranking. The company itself describes itself as “the first branchless banking service,” and the developer group stated, in the 2025 interview, that it is “Ukraine’s second-largest bank in terms of individual and entrepreneur payment cards.” Both are the companies’ own descriptions.

Placed within the National Bank’s figures for banks as a whole, Universal Bank ranked third in the number of individual depositors and the amount of individual deposits, after the state-owned PrivatBank and Oschadbank. In net assets, it ranked sixth, after PrivatBank, Oschadbank, Ukreximbank, Raiffeisen Bank, and PUMB, accounting for approximately 5.9% of all banks’ net assets. These figures, however, are for Universal Bank as a whole, and include business other than Monobank.

The Number of Users Differs Depending on What Is Counted

“11 million” is the figure Universal Bank reported on September 1, 2026, saying that “already 11 million people have chosen Monobank.” The Deposit Guarantee Fund’s “individual depositors” figure, meanwhile, was 10,823,709 as of August 1. The former’s method of counting is not explained, while the latter counts individuals who hold a deposit (including account balances) at the bank. Since the point in time and what is counted differ, this does not mean either figure is wrong.

How Does the Donation Feature “Banka” Work?

The Monobank app has a feature called “Banka” (Банка, meaning “jar”). According to the company, it can be used both for one’s own savings and for collecting donations. A donation Banka, the company explains, is a mechanism in which a report is attached when the collection is closed, so that donors can see how the funds were used. When a charitable fund is the collector, the company states that the money collected is transferred to the fund’s account in a single batch the following day.

The company gives the scale of donation Banky as 146 billion hryvnias collected since 2022, 1.1 million funds and volunteers that have opened a Banka, 15 million people who have donated at least once, and an average donation of 391.91 hryvnias. The same site’s homepage, meanwhile, gives the total amount donated as 100 billion hryvnias and the number of monthly donors as over 1.6 million. The difference between the figures on the two pages is not explained. Both are the company’s own announcements.

The government’s donation portal “UNITED24” is a separate mechanism, which collects donations into a National Bank account and allocates them to ministries. This is covered in our article on UNITED24.

Is It Covered by Deposit Guarantees?

Both the National Bank’s listing and the Deposit Guarantee Fund’s data confirm that Universal Bank is a participant in the Fund. The deposit guarantee mechanism is set out in the “Law on the Deposit Guarantee System for Individuals.” Article 26(1) provides that the Fund reimburses each depositor up to a ceiling amount, and states the following about that ceiling.

The amount of the ceiling for the reimbursement of funds on deposits may not be less than 200,000 hryvnias.

Law of Ukraine “On the Deposit Guarantee System for Individuals,” Article 26(1) (version as of April 19, 2025; translated from the Ukrainian original)

The actual ceiling is set by the Fund and is not given in this article. Whether a particular deposit is covered by the guarantee needs to be confirmed through information from the bank and the Fund. The conditions surrounding Ukrainian banks, such as the key policy rate, are covered in our article on the National Bank’s key policy rate.