Russian’s invasion of Ukraine has intensified uncertainty in the world economy. The European Union, the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Canada, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and Taiwan already announced some restrictive economic measures to target Russian financial institutions and individuals.
The controversial decision to disconnect Russia from SWIFT (Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication), which connects more than 10,000 financial institutions providing services related to the execution of financial transactions and payments between banks.
Russian Central Bank has already an alternative, to the Financial Message Transfer System (FMTS), developed in 2014 after the Ukraine crisis. Nevertheless, FMTS includes only 400 users that are mainly Russian and Belarusian banks, which will not help Russia to prop up in the international payment area.
Financial technology sector can play a critical role in this geopolitical crisis by put in motion projects and initiatives to help the Ukrainian and Russian citizens impacted by the war. Below, we enlist some of these initiatives already launched.
bunq
The Fintech responded rapidly and adjusted their system to supply Ukrainian passport holders with a free bunq account, which will be operable for up to 3 months.
This initiative has been thrown out of the necessity to make secure payments outside Ukraine.
Revolut
The FinTech that has staff based in the invaded country are providing relocation support to all their Ukraine-based employees that wish to move. They have also been engaging with global security solutions partners to provide their employees with guidance, emergency logistic support and the latest security updates in the country.
In addition, the company has waived transfer fees for sending money to an Ukrainians banks account.
everstake
Launched AidForUkraine in collaboration with Ukraine government and friends from the crypto community around the world. Funds will be deposited directly into a government account and will be aiding Ukrainians NGOs.
So far, they have raised $1,444,993.
Tech To The Rescue
This is a voluntary movement of tech companies to help social impact organizations around the world implement digital solutions to scale up their influence. Due to this, they just launched #TechForUkraine to help not-profit organizations that need tech support to maximize their impact in the light of the ongoing war.
These are just four initiatives of many projects launched in the past weeks to support people suffering in this senseless war.
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