For leaders of the fintech Upswot, Russia’s unprovoked attack on Ukraine is personal.
“We are Ukrainians,” said Dmitry Norenko, Upswot's CEO. “This is our country. These are tough times for us.”
Upswot is one of several fintechs that have Ukrainian employees and are working to help relocate those who can leave and protect those who need to stay.
‘We are not giving up’: Upswot’s CEO
Upswot, which provides white-label small-business banking and financial management software to banks, was originally founded in Ukraine but is now based in Charlotte, North Carolina. (It is opening a new office in Raleigh and currently hiring there.) But more than half of Upswot’s employee base is Ukrainian.
The company has managed to evacuate 70% of its Ukraine-based employees. Dmitry Syvolap, chief operating officer, was among a group that relocated from Kyiv to the country of Georgia a few days before the Russian invasion began.
But 40 Upswot employees remain in Ukraine, for one reason or another.
“Some of them have very old parents and they didn't want to leave them in the country without any support,” Norenko said. “One of our guys has an old dog. The dog can’t fly because he will die. And he decided not to leave the dog. Some of our guys are fighting on the battlefield right now. This is their decision. We are very worried about this, not from the business point of view but because this is our team. These guys were with us from the first day of the company creation. And their families are there.
“This is all about life, families, people and I wish I could say, no, all of you, you should move,” Norenko said. “But I can't say that. We talked with them, but still the decisions are made.”
Some male employees of Upswot will now have to stay in Ukraine until the borders reopen, because men under the age of 60 are not permitted to leave. They bring their wives and children to the border of a neighboring country, then return home to fight or work.
“There is nothing that we can do,” Norenko said. “We can support them financially, we can help them to move to safer places in Ukraine, but they can’t leave the country.”
Upswot has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars supporting employees in Ukraine, buying airline tickets, moving employees’ households from Ukraine to Georgia, paying for apartments and new equipment in the new locations. It’s been giving extra cash to those who remain in Ukraine. The banking system in Ukraine is still working and is stable, Norenko said.
“We are doing everything possible because the team is the most important,” Norenko said. “We can always build another business. It's about the people. They invest their life. They invest their time in our company to make us successful. And right now we can give back.”
The Upswot employees who escaped to Georgia with Syvolap are all living in the same apartment complex. There are 41 people in the group, plus their families. In an odd sort of silver lining, they are able to support each other in a way they couldn’t before, he said.
“Previously we had remote work because of COVID-19,” Syvolap said. “We had no chance to meet as often as we can now because the team is all together. We can talk to each other, we can have coffee, discuss work questions and personal matters.”
Syvolap has been working to keep the team’s spirits up.
“I hope that the situation will be stopped as fast as possible and everything will come back to normal life,” he said. Meanwhile, “our main chance to help Ukraine is to do our job well, to make our customers happy. We decided to make the focus of our team doing our job, not stopping, not thinking about everything is very bad and we will die. All those thoughts have to be canceled from our heads. We have to be concentrated on the goal and understand that the best help that we can do is do our job, get results and bring that result, that small win on the financial side, on the project side.”
Norenko said because of these efforts by Syvolap and his other partners “our guys are not as worried as they could be. They do a brilliant job saving the psychological health of our team.”
Upswot is still hiring people in Ukraine. It has also been donating to Ukraine volunteer groups.
“We are not giving up. We still can code. We still can develop,” Norenko said. The company’s dozens of financial institution customers, which include a top-three and a top-15 U.S. bank as well as the $757 million-asset Old Missouri Bank in Springfield, Missouri, have been supportive of the company’s decision to funnel cash into employee rescue efforts, as have seed investors First Southern National Bank and the Independent Community Bankers of America.
“All our shareholders completely understand that this is a difficult time for our people,” Norenko said. “And they understand that resources that we never planned to invest in our team should be invested right now. And they support this decision.”
Norenko describes Upswot as a Mint-like application for small and medium-sized businesses. Using application programming interfaces, it can pull in data from 167 programs businesses use like QuickBooks, PayPal, Square and ADP.
With all that data pooled together, businesses can see current and future cash flows and monitor key performance indicators. They can track accounts receivable and accounts payable.
“You can combine all the data from different banks and apps in one place,” Norenko said. “The bank is helping you to make better business decisions.” The software provides insights and suggestions to businesses based on their financial picture.
For those who want to help Ukrainians, Norenko recommends donating to the
Norenko and Syvolap say they are grateful for the support the U.S. and Europe have given Ukraine.
“Ukrainians will prove that we deserve freedom because we have been trying to leave Russia behind for centuries,” Norenko said. “And it’s never worked out. Maybe this time it will.”
‘This war is wrong’: Revolut’s CEO
“This war is wrong and totally abhorrent,” Revolut CEO Nik Storonsky wrote in a blog last week. “I am horrified and appalled at its impact, and I add my voice to those around the world calling for an immediate end to the fighting, and a commitment to diplomatic solutions. Not one more person should die in this needless conflict.”
Storonsky’s father is Ukrainian and he has friends and family in Ukraine. And though the challenger bank Revolut is based in the U.K., it has many Ukrainian employees. It’s provided those employees with an app that offers guidance, emergency logistical support and the latest security updates in the country.
As the crisis escalated, Revolut offered relocation support to all Ukraine-based employees.
“In recent days we have been evacuating them or taking them to safe shelters, and have been in constant communication with those who decided to take their own routes,” the spokeswoman said. “We continue to support those who cross the border."
For Ukrainians overall, Revolut has waived transfer fees for sending money to a Ukrainian bank account (TransferGo, Wise and Santander are among those that have done the same). The company announced that for a week starting March 1, Revolut will match every donation made to the Red Cross Ukraine, up to 1.5 million pounds.
“By Friday, we had enabled millions of our customers in the U.K., Lithuania, Ireland, Poland, Switzerland, Portugal, Austria, Bulgaria and Singapore to donate money to Ukrainian relief efforts so they can support the people of Ukraine,” the spokeswoman said.
Wise and Zopa relocate, hire Ukrainians
London-based Wise, the cross-border payment company formerly known as TransferWise, has also been trying to assist its Ukraine-based staff.
“We are shocked and deeply saddened by the war in Ukraine, and our thoughts are with everyone there who has been affected,” a spokesman said. “The safety of Wisers and their families is always our top priority.”
Wise had 16 employees working in its Cherkasy office, which the company recently closed.
“At present, we are grateful to report that all are safe,” the spokesman said. “Some have relocated outside of the country, while others remain. Wise has covered all associated costs for those who have relocated. Of course, we are constantly monitoring the situation and will continue to assess their needs daily to ensure they have the support they require.”
The company remains in communication with members of the Ukraine office and with Ukrainian staff working remotely in other countries. The spokesman declined to share the employees’ new locations and other details out of respect for employees’ privacy and because it is an evolving situation.
To support Ukrainian citizens, Wise has set up a
At least one fintech is combining humanitarian efforts to help Ukrainians with plans to hire more workers during the ongoing tech labor shortage. The challenger bank Zopa, which is also based in London, has offered to sponsor immediately up to 50 work visas of eligible Ukrainian applicants already in the U.K. with backgrounds in engineering, technology and data analytics. It will also fast-track the assessment and selection of Ukrainian job applicants who want to join British family members in the U.K. It will provide a relocation allowance of one month’s salary to support moving costs on receipt of right to work in the U.K.
“The first applications have started to come through — we’re going through resumes as we speak,” a spokesman said on Monday.
