SEPA with the smell of the Housing Office: how the government seeks to restore Soviet traditions

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SEPA with the smell of the Housing Office. How the Cabinet wanted to turn a bank into a passport office, and a citizen into a suspect.

Ukraine is a unique country. Here, the state may not build normal institutions for years, but it is able to quickly build registers, certificates, and procedures in the style of “prove that you are not a camel,” as it was in the USSR. This is reminiscent of a person who cannot repair an apartment with a leaking roof, but buys an expensive Swiss watch to “look like Europe.”

So the Cabinet of Ministers brought us this Swiss watch called SEPA (Single Euro Payments Area). The idea is wonderful, necessary and long overdue. But along with the watch, the government tried to imperceptibly slip an old Soviet nut into our pocket: the presumption of client guilt. We are talking about government bill No. 14327 (registered on 12/23/2025), which was presented under the guise of “fulfilling EU requirements.”

In early February 2026, the relevant committee of the Verkhovna Rada slowed down this document, sending it for revision due to “draconian norms”. But the story is not over – it just went on a break. Because “withdrawn from consideration” in parliamentary terms means: let’s rewrite it in other words and try again. And if society doesn’t fix the red lines now, tomorrow they will bring us the same rink, only with a more beautiful cover.

Why did this “technical European integration” document cause such an explosion? Because society read not the headline about SEPA, but the fine print about a new serf system in banking: the bank as a checkpoint into normal life, and the client as a suspect who must prove his own “normality” with pieces of paper.

SEPA is good. But “SEPA in Ukrainian” is…oops.

Let me state it right away: I am for SEPA, for transfers to euros in 10 seconds, for penny commissions and the integration of Ukrainian business into the EU market. This is the same “financial visa-free regime” that we are told about from all screens. But there is a nuance. When the Ukrainian state does not undertake a difficult task (to build smart financial monitoring that will catch real schemers), it does what it does best: shifts responsibility onto citizens. The logic is simple: “We are not able to pinpoint dirty money, so let’s give everyone a nightmare in a row.” It’s like treating a migraine with a guillotine – your head will definitely stop hurting.

In the public sphere, draft law No. 14327 was criticized for three key innovations that were supposed to become the norm:

1. Proof of residence. Banks should require customers to provide proof of actual residence (rental agreement or utility bills).
2. Confirmation of income sources. Declarations, contracts, statements.
3. Transaction reporting. “Certificates of work performed” or invoices may be required to confirm transfers (even household ones).

Sounds like standard European bureaucracy? Maybe to a Munich resident. But in the Ukrainian realities of 2026, it sounds like a sentence to banking inclusion.

Example #1: IDPs and “invisible” tenants Imagine millions of displaced people living in rented apartments without official contracts (because the owner does not want to pay 19.5% taxes and “glow”). The utility bill comes in the name of the owner. And then the bank says: “Bring the contract or payment in your name, otherwise – blocking”. The person will not become “more transparent”. He will simply go to cash or transfer to relatives’ cards.

Example #2: Freelancer in the gray zone A person earns honestly, but irregularly. Project work, small services, mixed income. The requirement to provide a “certificate of work performed” for each incoming payment turns card use into hell. The result? Crypto, cash, shadow exchangers.

Example #3: “transfers between friends”
A mother transfers money to a student for a dormitory. The family is collecting “for the operation.” Friends have thrown themselves “for the funeral.” A volunteer group has collected 200 hryvnias each “for a thermal imager.” And imagine this surprise: in a country at war, people have to not just transfer money, but prove to the bank the “economic nature” of their lives. This is not compliance. This is a bureaucratic assault on normal life.

And now about what officials are silent about, but what everyone understands perfectly well. Why did the requirement “confirm your actual place of residence” cause such animal horror? Because in a country at war, banking secrecy has long become a sieve – it no longer exists… Back in November 2024, a law was passed that obliged banks to disclose transaction data (including geolocation and IP addresses) to the police within 24 hours. In parallel, a data exchange system between the National Police and the Central Military Commission operates to search for violators of military registration.

When Bill No. 14327 requires you to bring a current lease agreement or utility bill to the bank, you are voluntarily submitting your actual geolocation to the system. Not the “registration” in your passport, where you haven’t lived for 10 years, but the real address where you sleep.

The chain looks like this:
You bring the bank a real address for the sake of “SEPA”.
The bank verifies it and enters it into the file.
The state (through financial mechanisms or law enforcement requests) gains access to this information.
The CCC receives information from the police (which has access to bank data) about where to actually look for a person who has “disappeared from the radar” at the place of registration.

Does the bill directly say: “Transfer addresses to the CCC of the SP”? No. But the data architecture is built in such a way that it becomes a matter of one click. This is a dual-purpose infrastructure: today we are fighting money laundering, tomorrow we are carrying out “addressed delivery” of summonses.

The biggest cynicism of the situation is that these measures will not stop real converters or corrupt people. They include lawyers, nominals, offshores and crypto. This roller coaster will roll over ordinary people.

If the state builds a system based on the principle of “checking everyone,” it will have the opposite effect:
– Mass output to the “cache”.
– The growing popularity of crypto cards and foreign payment systems.
– Total distrust of the banking system.

Instead of bringing the economy out of the shadows, the government is driving it underground, where neither laws, nor taxes, nor SEPA apply.

Good news: The committee has put the brakes on (for now)

On February 2, 2026, the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Finance did withdraw the government bill from consideration. Deputies, including Yaroslav Zheleznyak, called the requirements for certificates of work performed and utility bills “strange” and “excessive.” An alternative approach was proposed (draft law No. 14327-1): first, reboot the State Financial Monitoring Service and restore order in state bodies, and launch the register of accounts only at the time of actual accession to the EU.

This is a tactical victory for common sense. But it is too early to relax. “Withdrawn from consideration” in parliamentary parlance means “we will rewrite it in other words and try again.”

Conclusions

We want to go to Europe. We want cheap transfers. But we don’t want a digital concentration camp built for us under the banner of European integration. Europeanness is not when you stand in a bank with a folder of waste paper, proving that you are not a criminal. Europeanness is the presumption of integrity, the protection of privacy and control that is based on risks, not on the desire to know everything about everyone.

If the government wants to bring money out of the shadows, it must bring trust to society, not demand “show the water bill.” Because with such approaches, we will get SEPA without people – because people will simply leave the chat with the Ukrainian state.

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