Mastercard study: 51% of Ukrainians are ready to entirely switch to digital banking

Kyiv, April 5, 2023 – Ukrainians continue to actively use digital channels for banking purposes. Thus, according to the MasterIndex study commissioned by Mastercard, 94% of cardholders currently use online banking, with the vast majority (75%) opting for mobile applications. Moreover, more than half of the surveyed Ukrainians (51%) claim that they are ready to entirely switch to digital banking within the next two years, avoiding visits to physical bank branches.

The frequency of digital banking use has increased, as reported by 43% of respondents. Overall, one third of Ukrainians (31%) access their mobile banking app or online banking daily, and another 41% do this at least several times a week.

The most popular digital banking operations among Ukrainians include mobile account replenishment (82%), card-to-card money transfers (80%), utility bill payments (72%), donations (30%), loan repayments (24%), purchase of transport tickets (23%), deposit opening (14%), and payment cards issuance (14%).

Additional features that users would like to have in their digital banking include online payment card issuance (61%), management of accounts in different banks within one application (52%), cryptocurrency purchasing (27%), transport ticket purchasing (27%), obtaining financial advice on asset management (22%) as well as securities and shares purchasing (21%).

“Digitalization of banking solutions enables Ukrainians to receive high-quality financial services quickly and securely – at any time and in the most convenient way. Digital transformation has become the key to the financial sector’s resilience in times of full-scale war, ensuring uninterrupted access of Ukrainians to their accounts. This became possible thanks to the continuous efforts of all financial market players as well as the openness of Ukrainians to innovative solutions”, – underlined Anna Onyshchenko, Vice President, Head of Sales, Account Management, Mastercard Ukraine and Moldova.

For many years Mastercard, together with the National Bank of Ukraine and other government agencies, banks, and merchants, has been actively developing the country's payment and digital ecosystem, and that helped to ensure stable operation of cashless payments and digital services from the first days of the full-scale invasion. Some pre-war financial and digital services got their momentum today. Thus, Mastercard’s ‘Digital First’ program allows customers to issue a digital card in the mobile banking app and immediately use it for payments. Another Mastercard service – ‘Purchase with cash withdrawal’ – ensures Ukrainians have access to funds on their card accounts at the checkouts in dozens of chain stores. The ‘Mastercard Send’ technological platform allows to receive and send money transfers, collect donations, and receive financial aid on cards from international organizations quickly and easily. Also, last year Mastercard in cooperation with Ukrzaliznytsia (ENG: Ukrainian Railways) launched a mobile app for ticket sales, which is now used by more than 670,000 consumers.

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About MasterIndex

The survey of the attitude of Ukrainians to cashless payments was commissioned by Mastercard and conducted by InMind over November-December 2022 via online polling. The survey involved 1,502 respondents aged 18–60 years, living in cities with the population of 50 thousand people or more in government-controlled territories.