Ukraine
The first non-EU bank on a European trust list
monobank — Ukraine's largest digital bank — defended the eIDAS standards before a TAYLLORCOX auditor and was entered by the National Bank of Ukraine on the official list of qualified trust service providers, at assurance level High.
- monobank customers
- 8.9 M
- eIDAS assurance level
- High
- non-EU bank listed
- 1st
What the assessment established
For the first time, one of Ukraine's largest banks — monobank, operated by Universal Bank — holds an eIDAS certification. In practice that means the bank meets the strictest EU standards in three areas:
- electronic identity
- electronic signatures
- electronic seals on documents
These are the services Europeans already use to deal with public authorities: bank identity, citizen portals, online notarisation, digitally verified documents. All of them are governed by the eIDAS Regulation.
Having defended those standards before a TAYLLORCOX auditor, monobank was entered by the National Bank of Ukraine on the official trust list of qualified trust service providers.
The bank may now operate digital trust services at assurance level High — the highest level of electronic identification the regulation recognises. monobank also put considerable effort into connecting its systems to Diia, the government app and digital ID, so a customer can verify their identity, sign documents and open an account entirely online.
monobank can now operate digital trust services at assurance level High, which is the highest level of electronic identification. This certification is the best example there is of secure digital services for citizens, for businesses and for the banking system as a whole. And we are still at the beginning of Ukraine's digital transformation — we will shortly present further steps that take digitalisation to the level every EU member state is working towards.
A bank that lives in a phone
monobank is the first Ukrainian bank to run entirely through a mobile app. Everything is handled without branches and without lengthy paperwork. With more than 8.9 million customers it is the largest commercial digital bank in the country, and it brought a series of firsts to the sector:
- easier cross-border services
- contactless Apple Pay payments
- banking available well beyond the large cities
- opening an account online, with remote verification through the Diia digital ID
It also became a symbol of modern fintech. In the first year of the Russian invasion more than five million people used the platform to donate to Ukraine's defence, and the collections passed one billion dollars.
Ukraine is the first country outside the EU admitted to a European list of trusted providers, which is what allows Ukrainian electronic signatures and seals on documents to be verified here. Holding to EU standards raises confidence in new fintech services: monobank — and, in time, other banks — can guarantee their customers that transactions and documents are recognised in law and secured exactly as they are across the EU.
A digital state, built under fire
President Volodymyr Zelensky has said repeatedly that digital transformation is one of Ukraine's highest priorities. He sees it as an instrument for reforming public administration, strengthening transparency and bringing the country closer to the EU — none of which works without aligning the state with the eIDAS Regulation and the principles of European eID. Ninety Ukrainian laws have been brought into line with European standards for electronic identification and trust services, a step that materially accelerates integration into the EU's single digital market.
The policy has three edges: put as many official acts online as possible, cut the bureaucratic load and the room for corruption that goes with it, and make the country easier to do business in for foreign investors working to EU standards. Electronic services remove, at one click, the space in which bribes used to be negotiated. The war then showed that digital channels are decisive for the resilience of the whole economy.
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Digital Transformation Mykhailo Fedorov is the principal architect of those changes, and has called on the rest of Ukraine's banks to digitalise. Under wartime conditions, electronic identification tools and platforms such as Diia are the safest available way to run services and to do business — not least because the banking system is under sustained attack from Russia in a hybrid war. Digitalisation is what kept it open: most operations moved online along eIDAS lines, which held services running uninterrupted through the crisis.
Diia, built under Fedorov's leadership, is used by more than 70 % of Ukrainian smartphone owners — some 22 million people. Ukraine is the only country outside the EU taking part in the pilot of the European Digital Identity Wallet, which says something about how far it has come. With eID established at home, the next step is deployment and mutual recognition of electronic identities and signatures with the EU under eIDAS 2.0.
Ukraine has enormous potential to become the most digitalised country in the world. Despite the state of war they are managing to build the infrastructure and the legal framework at the same time — and it holds up against extreme security threats and cyber attacks.
The integration of Ukraine's digital systems with the EU is moving fast, and the country is ready to become a full part of the European digital economy. I know of no other state that meets EU rules and standards as quickly.
Planning the same for your service?
We assess electronic identification schemes and trust services against eIDAS — for banks, telecommunications operators and public institutions.
TAYLLORCOX in Ukraine
TAYLLORCOX is a French-Swiss conformity assessment body by origin, and today one of Europe's leading auditors of EU standards, of security, and of the reliability of digital transformation.
In Ukraine it acts as a key auditor and will go on working closely at every level of the country's digitalisation. Its strategic counterparts include Diia and the National Bank of Ukraine, together with the Ministry of Digital Transformation. The shared goal is to connect further Ukrainian banks and organisations securely to the European digital identity system.
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