The Ukrainian “private bank” is apparently patriotic at its ATMs. If you choose “Russian” as the language, you get a slogan instead of money.
A bank in Ukraine has a surprise in store for Russian customers. Anyone who wants to withdraw money from the “Privatbank” machine and selects “Russian” as the language will receive a clear message: “Слава Україні (Glory to Ukraine” is displayed on the screen, highlighted by the Ukrainian national colors blue and yellow. The popular slogan is meanwhile it has become the motto of the resistance once morest the Russian war of aggression.But that’s not all: withdrawing is no longer possible, the card is returned.
An Instagram video is shared on social networks, in which a man at an ATM demonstrates how the patriotic message appears following selecting the language.
Bank was nationalized in 2016
The private bank is the largest bank in Ukraine and has regarding 30,000 employees. It was nationalized in 2016 following a stress test to protect Ukraine’s banking system. One of the owners of the bank was the oligarch Igor Kolomoisky, who was also for a time the governor of the Dnepropetrovsk region. He was considered an opponent of the then President Petro Poroshenko, the predecessor of the current incumbent Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
The company is considered to be particularly progressive, having introduced online banking very early on. After the Russian invasion of Crimea in 2014, the bank closed its branches there and refused to pay out to customers there. The company is very patriotic on its website and, among other things, advertises donations to the Ukrainian army.
