• Ernst & Young’s advisors acted as coordinators of the project office for FUIB and Dongorbank merger

Kyiv, 15 September 2011. Ernst & Young’s team acted as advisors in the process of operational merger of two Ukrainian banks – FUIB PJSC and Dongorbank PJSC. The representatives of four Ernst & Young’s service lines participated in the development of a detailed merger plan and coordinated the work in all project areas, in particular: unification of product lines and accounting policies of the two banks, revision of organizational structure and personnel appointments, optimization of branch network, its additional refurbishment and rebranding, IT upgrading and data migration, staff training for new business processes and IT systems and for communications with clients and regulatory authorities.

Despite the difficulty of the merger process, the project team managed to meet the deadlines and complete the operational integration of the banks within a year. “Ernst & Young’s advisors demonstrated a professional approach to project management which allowed the bank completing the merger within the record time for the Ukrainian market, as well as making the merger process as comfortable for our clients as possible. A successful merger has become a significant step in realizing the Bank’s new strategy aimed at establishing a large Ukrainian financial institution," says Konstantin Vaysman, Head of FUIB’s Management Board.

On 16 July 2011, the banks have consolidated balance sheets and branch networks, and since July 18, 2011, the consolidated bank has started working under a joint brand FUIB. The high quality of preparation works ensured stable work before and after consolidation and allowed the bank’s team to quickly eliminate the arising difficulties in accordance to the beforehand developed reaction plans.

According to Kostiantyn Neviadomskyi, Partner, Head of Advisory Department, Ernst & Young Ukraine, “Completing a project of such scope within such time-frame has become possible due to the fact that the Bank’s management had assigned the project the highest priority. This allowed mobilizing all efforts and realizing in full the potential of FUIB’s team, which participated in such a project for the first time. We hope that this project will lay the ground work for execution of complex projects in the future.”

According to its financial performance, FUIB has become the 10th largest financial institution in Ukraine by assets: at the moment of merger, the combined bank’s assets amounted to UAH 25.4 billion. It has been estimated that the merger would bring operational cost saving of 10% plus per annum due to economies of scale.

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About FUIB

FUIB belongs to the group of Ukraine’s largest banks and is a universal bank active in corporate, retail, and investment banking operations. FUIB was founded in 1991. The Bank’s main shareholder is SCM Finance (89.87% of shares). Today the Bank’s national network comprises 11 branches and 171 outlets.

In 2010 FUIB entered The Banker Top 1000 World Banks 2010 listing, debuting at position 905. In addition, FUIB is one of Ukraine’s banking market leaders according to the Transparency and Disclosure by Ukrainian Banks 2010 joint research of the Financial Initiatives Agency and Standard & Poor’s with support from the USAID Capital Markets Project. In May 2011 Moody's credit rating agency improved its outlook of FUIB’s global ratings in national currency to B2 and rating of debt in foreign currency to “stable”. FUIB’s online banking service PUMB Online has been ranked #1 by usability by Forbes Ukraine (September 2011).

For more information, please visit FUIB website: www.pumb.ua