How Solidgate Treasury solves international banking problem for Ukrainian export businesses

Solidgate Treasury, a financial product built on a European license for international businesses, breaks down why Ukrainian exporters struggle to access reliable international banking – and how the right partner changes everything.

For Ukrainian IT companies and exporters, finding a reliable international banking partner has always been harder than it should be – and the gap between what the market offers and what actually works for a Ukrainian B2B exporter has never been properly solved.

Igor Herasko, Commercial Director at Solidgate Treasury, has watched this problem from the inside for over a decade – first at Payoneer, where he built the Ukrainian office from scratch, and now at Solidgate Treasury.

“I’ve spent more than ten years working with banking for Ukrainian export businesses. There have been a lot of stories along the way – from banks blocking transfers over innocent payment descriptions to a years-long saga with a bank that simply disappeared. But the core problem has always stayed the same.” – comments Ihor Herasko, Commercial Director at Solidgate Treasury.

Banking gap Ukrainian exporters keep running into

Ukrainian IT companies and service exporters face three recurring obstacles when trying to set up reliable international banking.

• Compliance wall
  Ukraine remains a high-risk country for international banking compliance. That limits the number of platforms willing to work with Ukrainian exporters – and pushes the ones that do to apply stricter scrutiny, longer onboarding, and more documentation than a typical client would face.
  
• Market mismatch
  Large international fintechs – Wise, Revolut, Brex – have moved toward mass acquisition: self-serve onboarding, mostly B2C, simple B2B at most. Ukrainian export businesses are almost always B2B, often structurally complex, and impossible to onboard through a web form and a chatbot.
  
• Wrong partner risk
  Speed and convenience are poor selection criteria for a banking partner. Businesses that choose based on how fast an account opens – rather than whether the institution actually fits their profile – often discover the mismatch too late.

“Back at Payoneer, I saw this firsthand with Latvian bank ABLV. At some point, many Ukrainian businesses rushed there because accounts opened fast. Then the regulator shut it down over violations – and clients came to me every day for months asking where to transfer their money. Some waited years to recover their funds, based on their legal entity structure.

There was also a case where an account got blocked because a CEO was paying an employee’s salary with comments like “this is for beer” or “for pizza.” Compliance blocked the account – and it wasn’t resolved quickly. We had to prove these were legitimate business transactions between the CEO and the employee.” – says Ihor Herasko, Commercial Director at Solidgate Treasury.

How Solidgate Treasury closes that gap

As businesses increasingly turn to fintech providers rather than traditional banks for their payment needs, banks are becoming the infrastructure behind the scenes – and the fintech brand you choose becomes your actual financial partner. That’s why choosing the right one matters that much. 

Solidgate Treasury is a European-licensed financial platform for international businesses operating from Ukraine. It gives Ukrainian export businesses a banking setup built around how they actually operate:

• European IBAN accounts in USD, EUR, and GBP
• Fast SWIFT and SEPA transfers
• Mass payments and corporate cards for distributed teams
• Compliance transparency
• A local team that speaks the same language 

It’s a partner that knows what operating internationally from Ukraine looks like – and acts on it.