Rostyslav Shurma and Alliance Bank: How Pavlo Shcherban helped cover up financial schemes, National Bank fines, and shadow money flows

20 May 2026 , 17:01

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Recently, the small Ukrainian bank “Alliance” has been repeatedly mentioned in media scandals. The most high-profile case involves an alleged bribery attempt in which Oleksii Nosov, a lawyer from the Miller law firm, was accused of offering bribes on behalf of the bank to NABU detectives and SAPO prosecutors in the Ukrenergo damages case. In addition, media reports have highlighted numerous fines imposed by the National Bank of Ukraine for violations of financial monitoring rules, failure to fulfill guarantee obligations to state-owned companies, and the submission of false financial statements.

Yet the bank remains afloat. Why? The answer may lie in a powerful behind-the-scenes patron — Deputy Head of the Presidential Office Rostyslav Shurma. Thanks to his close relationship with Pavlo Shcherban, the chairman of the bank’s supervisory board, Shurma is allegedly able to shield Alliance Bank from pressure by the NBU and provide protection from law enforcement scrutiny.

The Real Owner

Formally, according to the Unified State Register of Enterprises and Organizations and disclosures submitted to the National Bank, the key shareholder (“holder of a significant stake”) in Alliance Bank is Oleksandr Sosis, the former chairman of Rinat Akhmetov’s ASKA insurance company. However, market insiders have long known who actually makes the key decisions at the bank: 40-year-old Pavlo Pavlovych Shcherban, chairman of the supervisory board.

According to open-source information, Shcherban has worked in the banking sector for around 18 years. He began his career at a Prominvestbank branch in Kremenchuk as a senior economist in the retail lending department. He later headed the dealing operations division at the notorious “schematic” Volodymyrsky Bank. After the 2008–2009 financial crisis, Shcherban led the dealing operations department at Pivdencombank, owned by Ruslan Tsyplakov — a close associate of Viktor Yanukovych Jr.

Following the Revolution of Dignity, when Pivdencombank effectively collapsed, Shcherban became head of interbank operations at another so-called “pocket laundromat” institution — Apex Bank. He later worked briefly as treasury chief at Standard Bank, another financial institution later liquidated. In 2016, Shcherban first joined Alliance Bank as a treasury dealer before moving to Serhiy Tihipko’s TAScombank as deputy treasury chief.

From mid-2018 to the present, Shcherban has been directly tied to Alliance Bank. He served as deputy chairman and acting chairman of the management board, and since August 2021 has chaired the supervisory board. At the same time, Shcherban has also become a major shareholder. In July 2023, Ukraine’s Antimonopoly Committee approved his acquisition of more than 25% of the bank’s shares, with the deal expected to be finalized in the coming weeks through a new share issuance.

Sources in the banking sector insist that despite Oleksandr Sosis formally holding a majority stake, real decisions at Alliance are made by Pavlo Shcherban. Moreover, he allegedly acts as the bank’s “political roof,” shielding the institution from regulatory claims and from law enforcement interest in Alliance’s allegedly questionable activities — including servicing a significant share of the gambling industry, some of it reportedly illegal.

Shcherban’s confidence is said to stem from his close personal ties with Deputy Presidential Office Head Rostyslav Shurma. According to sources, Shurma and Shcherban likely became acquainted around a decade ago while structuring various financial schemes. Today, Shurma allegedly guarantees Alliance Bank’s practical immunity, even under conditions where other financial institutions would likely have already been removed from the market. Failure to honor guarantees, chronic violations of NBU regulations — especially regarding risk exposure to single clients — corruption scandals, and fines for breaches of financial monitoring rules should, collectively, have already resulted in temporary administration being imposed on the bank.

Yet this “business for insiders” somehow survives. According to market participants, Alliance may function as a key schematic bank for shadow financial flows, much like the state-owned Ukrgasbank once did. The difference, however, is that while Ukrgasbank was eventually cleaned up and returned to legitimate operations, no one appears willing or able to do the same with Alliance.

A Partner In Everything

So where does Shurma fit into all this, beyond his close ties with Shcherban? The answer may lie in Shcherban’s increasingly diversified business interests — behind many of which, according to sources, stand Rostyslav Shurma himself.

First is the gas production company Viva Exploration, formally owned by Shcherban together with geologist Serhiy Dumenko through the Cypriot company I.F. Exploration Company Limited. According to industry media, the company holds a license for geological exploration and pilot industrial extraction of oil, natural gas, and condensate at the Staromizunska field in the Ivano-Frankivsk region until 2033. Before Russia’s full-scale invasion, the company planned to restore old wells for extraction. However, exploration efforts reportedly failed to discover commercially viable reserves. Financial statements in the YouControl database show losses of roughly $1 million by the end of 2023. So why does the company continue investing? The answer may be that the true investor is not Shcherban, but his ally Rostyslav Shurma.

Another interesting asset potentially linked to Shurma is the recently acquired grain elevator in the city of Khorol in the Poltava region (Alliance Elevator LLC). Despite its modest size and need for reconstruction, Shcherban and Shurma reportedly see the project as a stepping stone toward broader integration into the agricultural sector, where demand for grain storage continues to rise annually.

An entire cluster of companies tied to Shcherban is linked to the IT sector. Following the example of Monobank’s founders, Shcherban appears to be building a diversified IT team capable of servicing multiple industries. Most of these firms specialize in banking technologies but also work with retail chains. These include Alliance Digital LLC (the bank’s IT staff spun off into a separate company), ACDGS LLC, APL LLC, and Motvel LLC — all focused on banking-sector software development, with Shcherban either directly involved or partnered with IT specialists.

It is difficult to ignore the possibility that this high-tech cluster may also represent an attractive investment and “success story” for someone like Rostyslav Shurma, who is known for his interest in digitalizing the economy. At the same time, Shurma has reportedly long sought to challenge Digital Transformation Minister Mykhailo Fedorov’s influence. In that context, Shcherban’s group may serve as the foundation for building Shurma’s own digital power base.

In several other sectors, Shcherban and Shurma appear not to have fully settled on a direction yet. For example, Tabakos Trade LLC, intended for scrap metal trading, and Navium Nafta LLC, intended for importing and trading petroleum products domestically, remain largely inactive.

This broad diversification of business interests hardly aligns with the role of a supervisory board chairman at a bank that has faced ongoing turbulence for months. Therefore, either Alliance is not Shcherban’s primary focus — which seems unlikely — or the investments into these varied ventures are simply venture-style portfolio investments in which the investor exerts little operational influence while receiving passive income proportional to their stake. And behind those investments, perhaps, stands not Shcherban himself.

As for Rostyslav Yuriyovych Shurma, sources claim an increasing number of conflict points are emerging around him. For journalists, these may become new avenues for investigation. For law enforcement, potentially new criminal cases.