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Raiffeisen Bank International AG and UniCredit SpA may lose the opportunity to sell their Russian subsidiaries, Bloomberg reported.
According to sources, in the current circumstances, the authorities approve the sale of bank assets only to companies that do not risk sanctions, which completely excludes Russian buyers. At the same time, given the opposition of Western countries to sales to non-Russian buyers, the transaction turned out to be practically impossible.
Therefore, an agreement with these banks that is suitable for Russia will not be supported by Western countries, and Moscow will not support a solution that is suitable for Western countries. The position of the authorities is explained by the fact that the sanctions will not allow the subsidiaries of Austrian and Italian banks to pay for gas exports, so the funds will have to be processed only through Gazprombank. The remaining large banks of the Russian Federation have been excluded from the SWIFT payment messaging system, the publication recalls.
In March 2024, US authorities threatened to impose sanctions against Raiffeisen for doing business in Russia. In Washington, it is believed that the bank finances the Russian military while working in the Russian Federation.
“In March last year, Business Petersburg responded that Raiffeisen Bank International (RBI) had decided on the fate of its operations in Russia. The company's head, Johann Strobl, plans to sell it or expand outside the group. , announced plans to leave the Russian market at the end of 2023, and not in October, as planned.
Last July, UniCredit appeared before an EU court over a statement by the European Central Bank (ECB) on the risks of operating in Russia. In this way, financial institutions plan to obtain clarity regarding their obligations. The bank explained that it decided to go to court in the context of "unprecedented circumstances and the complexity of the socio-economic and geopolitical context."