About us
We build trust
it just so happens that we do it by creating AML & KYC solutions
We combine data, technology, and local expertise to help obliged institutions better understand risk,
build trust in business relationships, and make more informed decisions.
Trust is the foundation
of a secure future
It enables decisions to be made, contracts to be signed and partnerships to be forged - even in the face of uncertainty.
Our mission
We believe trust can be strengthened through transparency and access to reliable information.
FinObserve was established to help build trust in the market, so that decisions are grounded in facts, not assumptions.
We want to support honest market participants and limit the influence of those who abuse that trust.
That is why we build our tools - to promote transparency and strengthen trust between people, between organizations and across borders.
Transparency begins with high-quality data
and its proper interpretation
Most compliance platforms focus on "global coverage," relying on external data providers.
This delivers broad reach - but often at the cost of understanding and data quality.
FinObserve works differently
We build and develop our own high-quality databases, continuously updating, organizing and analyzing them.
For us, the scope of information alone is not enough. What matters is how the data is connected and analyzed, and whether local context and legal requirements are properly understood.
That is why we combine data from official public registries in Poland and Ukraine with international information sources, including sanctions lists, PEP databases, country risk assessments, wanted persons lists and other sources used in AML and KYC processes.
Technology built on
trust and experience
FinObserve combines technology, data and analytical expertise to deliver practical compliance tools. Our solutions are developed by professionals with experience in banking, technology and compliance. That is why we understand the challenges professionals face in their day-to-day work. We design our tools as if we were building them for ourselves - to be intuitive, practical and, most importantly, effective.
We focus on three elements
01.
Depth and quality
Fragmented knowledge is a risk. That is why we aggregate, correlate and analyze data from multiple sources to build a complete, multidimensional picture - so that potential risks can be identified before they become real problems.
02.
Usability
The best tool is one you don’t have to learn how to use. We design our solutions with the realities of operational work in mind - so that an OSINT analyst, a compliance officer and a bank employee can all navigate them with equal confidence.
03.
Accountability
We build tools that have a real impact on decisions and security. That is why -every feature of our product is designed to support informed, fact-based action.
The people behind it
Different backgrounds. One goal - building trust
through intelligent AML and KYC solutions.
Radek Wielkopolan
Responsible for FinObserve's strategy, the development of the CheckLists FinAP service and the company's operations in the European market.
He brings together experience gained at leading financial institutions and technology companies with the practical knowledge needed to build products that address real market and client needs.
CEO, FinObserve
Volodymyr Derkach
CEO, FinAP Group
Co-founder of FinAP Group and one of the leading AML experts in Ukraine.
He has over 20 years of experience in the financial sector, spanning both public and private institutions. He has worked at the intersection of banking and regulation, focusing on compliance, financial crime prevention and risk modeling.
Oleksandr Kravchuk
Co-founder of the FinAP Group, responsible for technological architecture and the development of analytical systems.
He specializes in data platform design and large-scale data processing, building advanced analytical models that form the technological backbone of FinAP and FinObserve's solutions.
CEO / CTO, FinAP Group
The FinObserve Story
Our story is unique, just like what we create.
So let’s start from the beginning.
1990s – 2015
People who changed the system from within
Before the first FinAP companies and products were created, the people behind them spent decades working within the system they wanted to change.
Volodymyr Derkach had been active in Ukraine’s financial sector since the 1990s - both in public institutions and private organizations. For more than twenty years, he specialized in AML, KYC, and due diligence. He built compliance procedures and teams from the ground up at a time when no real standards existed in Ukraine. He became one of the pioneers of financial monitoring and compliance in the country.
Alongside his professional work, Volodymyr was also engaged in academic research in AML and compliance. He studied the practical application of financial monitoring requirements, examined approaches to risk management and published work on anti-money laundering and the prevention of financial abuse.
During the same period, Oleksandr Kravchuk worked on the technological side of Ukraine’s banking sector. He focused on analytical systems architecture and financial data processing from an engineering perspective.
He and Volodymyr already knew each other, but over the years they were brought closer together by a shared problem: the tools for combating financial abuse did not meet the real needs of the market.
2015 – 2017
The first company. Rivne, 2015
When it becomes clear that existing solutions do not work, you have to build your own.
In 2015, Oleksandr Kravchuk founded his first technology company focused on financial data and analytical systems for the banking sector. It became the foundation of what would later grow into the FinAP Group.
At the same time, Volodymyr Derkach continued working within large financial institutions and assessed the situation critically: compliance processes remained largely formal and had little impact on effective risk management. The system made it possible to meet formal requirements, but did not always provide meaningful protection against abuse - and that gap was only growing.
In 2017, Volodymyr joined Oleksandr, bringing years of practical experience, research expertise and a deep understanding of how financial processes actually work inside large institutions.
The combination of technology, practice and research marked the beginning of a new approach to anti-money laundering.
From the very beginning, the goal was clear: to build next-generation AML technology with a particular focus on PEP screening and sanctions lists - precisely where the gap between risk and available solutions was the widest.
The name of the FinAP Group of companies stands for Financial Abuse Prevention. It directly reflects the core idea and direction of the group's work.
2017 – 2023
From startup to a market leader
From one company to a market leader - through consistent specialization and an uncompromising focus on data quality.
Growth was gradual, but the direction remained the same. As the client base expanded, new needs emerged - diverse enough that a single company could no longer address them all without losing depth. Over time, Volodymyr and Oleksandr established additional entities, each focused on a specific area of compliance technology. This is how the FinAP Group was formed - a cluster of specialized companies united by shared values and deep industry expertise.
Flagship products - ISPPA for NBFI for non-banking financial institutions and ISPPA in FP for banks - became core operational compliance tools across the Ukrainian financial sector. However, the key product was CheckLists FinAP: a service combining entity verification, PEP data, sanctions screening, and risk analysis within a single, practical interface.
By 2023, the FinAP Group’s solutions were used by a significant share of Ukraine’s largest banks, as well as by insurance companies, payment operators and major commercial enterprises.
2023
The idea of entering the European market
What was missing was the right person.
Expanding beyond Ukraine was the natural next step. Volodymyr already knew who he wanted to involve in the project. He had known Radek Wielkopolan for many years and believed that his experience was well suited to the needs of the project.
Radek studied in Canada and began his career in the IT sector in the United States before returning to Poland. He spent several years at the Krakow office of Brown Brothers Harriman, one of the world’s largest custodian banks. He had also founded and run two companies of his own. He understood the financial, technological and business sides of the project, as well as the specifics of the European and American markets.
In 2023, Volodymyr invited Radek to Rivne to introduce him to the Group’s operations and discuss the possibility of entering the European market. After the meeting, it became clear that they shared a similar vision for the future of the product and the direction of its development. Together, they decided to create a separate European project.
From the beginning, one of the key objectives was to establish a Polish company responsible for developing the platform in the Polish and European markets. It was to be a separate company incorporated under Polish law, operating within the FinAP Group, with its own team, management and data infrastructure, and responsible for product development and client service in the European market.
2024
A new company, a new market, new challenges
Bringing a product to a new market is one thing. Rebuilding it around local market realities is something else entirely.
In June 2024, FinObserve was established in Kraków, with Radek Wielkopolan taking the role of CEO.
The foundation of the new project was the technology behind the FinAP CheckLists platform, developed within the FinAP Group - a solution already used by many of Ukraine’s largest banks..
However, the Polish market required a fundamentally different approach. It was not simply a matter of translating or adapting the interface, but of building a system capable of working with Polish registries and local data structures while meeting European regulatory requirements.
The FinObserve team adapted the platform to the requirements of the Polish and European markets, developing its own databases for Poland and integrating Ukrainian data obtained from the FinAP Group.
All data used by FinObserve is processed within the infrastructure maintained by the company in Poland. This makes it possible to analyze links between Polish and Ukrainian entities within a single analytical environment.
CheckLists FinAP by FinObserve combines data from Polish and Ukrainian public registries, global PEP databases, sanctions lists and other AML/KYC sources with business intelligence capabilities to accelerate the analysis of entities, individuals, relationships and potential risks.
Today and beyond
Where we are and where we’re going
The foundations are in place. New markets lie ahead.
FinObserve is a Polish technology company operating within the FinAP Group in accordance with Polish and European Union law. We develop the FinAP CheckLists platform for the Polish and European markets, combining the experience of the FinAP Group with a deep understanding of the Polish market and European regulatory requirements.
Today, FinObserve develops databases for the Polish market, continuously expanding their scope and improving their quality and accuracy. At the same time, we are developing the platform with future use in new markets in mind. This will allow us to integrate local data sources and adapt the platform to the specific characteristics of each market.
Since 2015, the FinAP Group has been guided by the same idea: trust in finance is built on facts. FinObserve continues to carry that idea forward in the Polish and European markets.
FinObserve and FinAP. Poland and Ukraine - different experiences, one shared belief: in finance, trust is built on facts, not declarations.