Looting and clients without documents: how pawnshops work during the war

During the war in Ukraine, thefts and looting are very common. Property can be stolen not only from citizens, but also from various institutions. In particular, pawnshops in Ukraine also work with certain problems.

The National Bank spoke about the conditions in which pawnshops are currently operating, and what changes were introduced in connection with this.

The main problems of the industry

Participants in the pawnshop market told the NBU that the main problems in work during martial law are as follows:

• looting and theft of property in the temporarily occupied territories and in places of hostilities;
• introduction of restrictions on cash withdrawals by pawnshops;
• difficulties in identifying clients who have lost documents as a result of hostilities or forced relocation.

In this regard, the National Bank introduced some changes that facilitated the work of such institutions, in particular:

• established a moratorium on scheduled and unscheduled inspections of pawnshops;
• canceled enforcement measures for failure to submit reports and information at the request or request of the regulator;
• delayed the implementation of a significant number of provisions of the new license requirements;
• delayed the deadline for bringing activities in line with the requirements of new regulatory documents.

Also, pawnshops are now recommended to use cashless payments as much as possible. In addition, no changes should be made to the procedure for identifying customers, as the fight against terrorist financing is now intensifying.

Why are pawnshops closing en masse in Ukraine?

Earlier, Segodnya was told that in March the number of participants in the non-banking financial market decreased to 1682 (as of March 31) from 1846 (as of February 28), but during this time only one financial company was registered.

“One financial company and one insurance broker left the market voluntarily, and seven financial companies, 62 pawnshops, 70 credit unions and 24 leasing companies were forcibly excluded,” the National Bank said.

According to Yevhen Dubogryz, associate expert of the analytical center “CASE Ukraine”, it is difficult for pawnshops to work now, because it is difficult to assess the value of some property – that is, that which is given to a pawnshop for money.

“Because there is no market. It is not clear how much this or that thing costs and whether it can be sold”, he says.

According to him, for non-bank financial companies until there is no business. The difficulty lies in the fact that there are no state guarantees for deposits – unlike banks, for which they introduced a 100% guarantee of all deposits, the analyst notes.

We also wrote what responsibility is provided for looting and other crimes under martial law, and how not to become bankrupt.