Polish fintech heads east. ZEN enters Ukraine

It is not banking leader PKO BP but fintech ZEN.COM that has become the first Polish institution to acquire one of several Ukrainian banks that were—or are yet to be—put up for sale in 2026.

In a somewhat unexpected move, on April 2 the fintech founded by Dawid Rożek, co-creator of the gaming platform G2A, announced it had won the tender to acquire PIN Bank. While not a large lender, the deal gives the fintech a foothold for expansion east of Poland.

ZEN competed with 10 bidders

“This is a strategic step for ZEN.COM and a sign of our long-term commitment to Ukraine. Our ambition is to build a modern digital financial institution that meets the real needs of customers and businesses in the country,” says Dawid Rożek.

ZEN competed for the acquisition against 10 other bidders: five banks and five non-bank institutions, including entities linked to Serhiy Tihipko, who in 2025 acquired Ukraine’s Idea Bank from Polish investor Leszek Czarnecki.

Earlier, at the end of February, the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) placed PIN Bank under temporary administration due to insolvency. Three days later, it launched a tender for the sale of the troubled lender. Given the exceptionally strong interest, Ukraine’s Deposit Guarantee Fund (DGF) extended the deadline for the process several times.

The process covered the acquisition of two banks

PIN Bank was not the only asset on offer. A parallel process was under way for the acquisition of Motor Bank, which ultimately went to Asvio Bank. The procedure itself included, among other things, an analysis of the target institution’s financial condition, preparation of the bid and compliance with regulatory requirements. According to ZEN.COM, the entire process took several months and was highly formalized, as is typical for transactions of this kind.

This is part of a broader trend in Ukrainian banking. Earlier, at the start of 2026, Estonia’s Iute Group acquired the failed RVS Bank for EUR 120,000 (PLN 505,500 at the time), and by mid-March the new investor had recapitalized the bank with 300m hryvnias (PLN 25.44m). Then, in March, France’s Crédit Agricole group bought a stake in Bank Lviv.

The authorities in Kyiv have announced plans to privatize five large Ukrainian banks: PrivatBank, the country’s biggest lender; Oschadbank, the second-largest player in the market; and smaller institutions such as Sens Bank, Ukrgasbank and Ukreximbank. Together, these banks account for more than half of the assets of Ukraine’s banking sector. The first to be sold are expected to be Sens Bank, which is 100% state-owned, and Ukrgasbank, of which the state holds 94.9%.

PIN Bank and the chairman of CSKA Moscow

PIN Bank itself is a lender with a 27-year history and a branch network across Ukraine. It is one of the country’s smallest banks. According to the NBU, it accounts for 0.01% of the assets of Ukraine’s banking sector. As the Ukrainian outlet Ekonomichna Pravda reports, the bank belonged to Yevgeny Giner, a sanctioned Russian businessman and chairman of the Moscow football club CSKA. He held 88.9% of the bank’s shares. Giner’s stake was nationalized in February 2023, a year after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The plan was for the institution to be transferred to Ukrposhta to operate as a postal bank.

In 2025 the shares were transferred to the ministry overseeing the postal operator, but the takeover ultimately did not go ahead. Why? Ukrposhta itself needed recapitalization and therefore lacked the capital required to develop a banking business. Ekonomichna Pravda reports that the initial valuation of 100% of PIN Bank’s shares may have been 100m-150m Ukrainian hryvnias, equivalent to PLN 8.5m-12.7m. According to the outlet’s sources, the Polish investors offered somewhat more—perhaps as much as 170m-175m hryvnias, or PLN 14.5m-15m.

The process is expected to be completed in mid-April

That will not be the end of ZEN.COM’s investment. The Polish fintech says it will invest a further EUR 20m (about PLN 86m) in expanding its operations in Ukraine. That is to fund an upgrade of the bank’s technology and the development of an offering tailored to local needs.

The transaction itself is expected to move quickly. The company says it plans to close the deal as early as mid-April, once it has secured the required regulatory approvals from the NBU and the Antimonopoly Committee. Such a rapid timetable is possible thanks to the strong engagement of the Ukrainian regulator at an earlier stage of the approval process. Timing also matters: the temporary administration at PIN Bank expires on April 17. The new owners will then have one month to bring the institution into line with regulatory requirements.

“Acquiring the bank gives us the opportunity to enter the market more quickly and build a fully fledged digital financial institution on a digital-first model. We see Ukraine as a market with significant potential, both in the context of economic reconstruction and rising demand for modern cross-border financial services. We want to combine local infrastructure with ZEN’s global ecosystem, particularly in payments, international transfers and multicurrency solutions,” Michał Bogusławski, ZEN.COM’s head for Europe, told XYZ.

ZEN wanted the license, not the products

Our interlocutor does not hide the fact that, in making the acquisition, ZEN was not focused on PIN Bank’s existing product offering. Instead, it was drawn to the fact that the bank has a license and infrastructure that provide a solid foundation for the further development of modern financial services in Ukraine.

ZEN wants to turn PIN Bank into a technology-based financial platform, closely integrated with ZEN.COM’s global payments and financial infrastructure. That will allow the company to expand its multicurrency capabilities to include the Ukrainian hryvnia. At the same time, it plans to offer financial services to retail customers, including everyday financial solutions enhanced by features such as cashback, while also developing an offering for small and medium-sized enterprises.

A banking license offers more scope than an EMI

XYZ readers could already read in February that ZEN.COM wanted to enter the Ukrainian market. At the time, Michał Bogusławski revealed that obtaining an electronic money institution (EMI) license was proving a considerable challenge. The issue is that, since Russia’s invasion in February 2022, the National Bank of Ukraine has not issued a single new license for payments activity. The fintech wanted to be the first entity to secure one. Its plan was to begin operations by the end of 2026.

Asked about those plans now, he is clear: at this stage the fintech is focused on completing the bank acquisition.

“This gives us broader operational possibilities than the EMI model. That does not change our overall approach, however—we are still developing a technology-driven, global financial ecosystem and will choose regulatory solutions depending on market needs and the scale of the business,” the executive stresses.

Ukraine will be the 33rd market in which ZEN.COM operates. More than five years after launch, 1.5m retail customers and 10,000 companies actively use the fintech’s services. The company offers multicurrency payment cards with instant cashback, as well as foreign-exchange services, money transfers and cryptocurrency trading. It operates on a subscription model, with customer benefits depending on the plan they use.

Key Takeaways

1. ZEN.COM is the first Polish player to acquire a bank in Ukraine as part of the current wave of privatization and sell-offs in the country’s financial sector. It beat 10 other institutions in the process. The deal concerns the small PIN Bank, which had previously been nationalized because of its links to Russian capital. The bank itself is marginal in scale, but its strategic importance for the buyer is considerable.
2. ZEN is not interested in the bank’s existing business model, but in its license and infrastructure. Those are what make it possible to build a modern, digital-first financial platform. The company plans to integrate the bank into its own global ecosystem of payments and multicurrency services. A further EUR 20m (about PLN 86m) of investment is intended to fund technology upgrades and tailor the offering to local needs.
3. The move into Ukraine fits ZEN’s broader expansion strategy, with the fintech already active in 32 markets. For ZEN, Ukraine is not merely another country of operation, but an important direction for growth in the context of economic reconstruction and rising demand for financial services. Acquiring a bank also offers broader operational scope than the electronic money institution model. At the same time, however, it means entering a market burdened by geopolitical risk.