Building the Rails for Recovery: Why Ukraine’s Financial Infrastructure Matters for Reconstruction

The market’s resilience during the war is only one part of the story. At the same time as financial institutions have been adapting to extraordinary conditions, Ukraine’s financial sector has continued to modernize its infrastructure, develop its capital markets and align its framework with European standards. 

Reconstruction is often described through its most visible elements: funding commitments, infrastructure projects, businesses, and physical assets. But between an investor deciding to allocate capital and that capital reaching a project lies a financial system that has to make the transaction possible. 

Investors need a predictable regulatory framework, legal certainty, investor protection, and reliable market infrastructure. Securities services then provide the mechanisms needed to support instruments through custody, settlement, and ongoing post-trade processes.  

But infrastructure alone is not enough. There also need to be investable assets and instruments capable of connecting capital with the real economy. This is one of the areas where Ukraine’s market is evolving. Initiatives around securitization, the integration of interests in Ukrainian Limited Liability Companies (LLCs) into the depository infrastructure, and simplified securities issuance are part of a broader effort to expand the channels through which capital can be raised and invested. 

Agrarian Notes provide another example. Developed with IFC support and built on the infrastructure of the National Depository of Ukraine, the digital instrument is designed to support financing in the agricultural sector while also broadening the range of investment opportunities in the Ukrainian market. The significance of these developments goes beyond individual products. They are part of the infrastructure needed to make a future flow of capital possible. 

Ukraine is working to align its capital-markets framework with more than 170 EU legal acts. But regulatory alignment is not simply a matter of adopting legislation. New rules also need to work in practice, for investors, financial institutions, market infrastructure providers and the systems supporting them. 

This is where market practitioners like Bohdana Yefremova with almost 30 years of experience in custody and securities services, can play a critical role: A legislative proposal can look straightforward on paper, but its real implications only become clear when market participants work through actual scenarios and consider how changes would affect clients, operations, and systems. 

The cooperation between Raiffeisen Bank International in Vienna and Raiffeisen Bank Ukraine shows how RBI’s regional securities-services model works in practice. Vienna connects clients to RBI’s wider network and brings the perspective of international investors, while Kyiv contributes firsthand knowledge of Ukraine’s market infrastructure, regulatory developments, and operational realities. 

The Ukrainian market is not waiting for reconstruction to begin before preparing for the capital that reconstruction will require. Infrastructure is being modernized. Regulation is evolving. New investment instruments are being developed. And market participants are working to translate international standards and experience into solutions that function locally. 

Securities services may not be the most visible part of this story. But they are part of what makes the connection between international capital and the Ukrainian economy possible. As Bohdana Yefremova puts it: “We are preparing the soil before the planting season begins.”