Cabinet of Ministers approves Natalia Degtyareva for the Sense Bank supervisory board: composition to grow to five, but quorum still unattainable

The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine has approved Natalia Degtyareva as a member of the supervisory board of the state-owned Sense Bank, in the capacity of the state representative. This is reported by RBC-Ukraine, citing Government Resolution No. 853, adopted on 21 August 2026. As a result, the management body of the nationalized bank now includes a state representative with relevant experience in banking supervision and internal audit.

The financier's career

According to the published data, from 2016 to 2023 Natalia Degtyareva held the position of Head of the Banking Supervision Department of the National Bank of Ukraine. Prior to that, between 2009 and 2016, she worked as Head of the Internal Audit Department of Prominvestbank (Kyiv). In an earlier period, from 1999 to 2004, Degtyareva worked in private companies in the roles of head of the internal audit service and head of the credit department. This profile — supervision, audit, lending — makes her appointment logical in the context of strengthening control over the state bank.

Composition of the supervisory board and the quorum issue

With Degtyareva's appointment, the number of members of the Sense Bank supervisory board will increase to five. At the same time, as emphasized in the materials, at least six members are required for the quorum of supervisory board meetings. Formally, this means that until the full composition is formed, the management body will not be able to make decisions in full, which may affect the speed of the bank's managerial decisions during the transition period.

Context: the "Forrest Gump" case and NBU inspections

The appointment comes against the backdrop of a tense situation around the bank. Earlier, the Cabinet of Ministers decided to remove Nikolai Hladyshchenko, head of the supervisory board of the state Sense Bank, amid the "Forrest Gump" case, and also initiated the removal of the bank's chairman of the board of directors. In addition, the NABU and the SAP released fragments of conversations within the framework of the "Forrest Gump" operation, in which possible influence over the nationalized Sense Bank is mentioned. In parallel, RBC-Ukraine reported that the NBU is inspecting the bank for possible interference by its employees in the operation of the automated system. Earlier, in May 2026, the NBU called for strengthening the Sense Bank supervisory board with risk managers, indicating the regulator's systematic work to strengthen the bank's governance.

Contradictory data

The sources record a discrepancy in the characterization of the new board member. In RBC-Ukraine's materials, Natalia Degtyareva is described as the state representative on the supervisory board, whereas the publication "Korrespondent" describes the appointment as the inclusion of a new independent member in the board. These two formulations — "state representative" and "independent member" — are not synonymous and may be interpreted differently from a corporate governance perspective. Also, the original source text contains the spelling "Smysl Bank" alongside "Sense Bank" and "Sense Bank", which is a transliteration/branding variation of the same institution, not a separate entity.

The outcome is a picture in which the state is systematically rebuilding the supervisory board of the troubled bank: removing figures implicated in the "Forrest Gump" case and bringing in specialists with supervision and audit experience. The key issue remains the formation of a quorum of six members, without which the full functioning of the board will be limited.