After the start of Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Austrian Raiffeisenbank announced its intention to leave the Russian market, following the example of many other Western companies. However, instead, the bank appears to be expanding its business in the Russian Federation. The newspaper comes to this conclusion Financial Times in the publication of Tuesday, April 16.
Journalists discovered 2,400 job advertisements in Russia published by Raiffeisenbank since December 2023. Almost 1,500 offers relate to vacancies for sales managers and customer service, as indicated in the article. One of the announcements, published by the bank’s division serving medium-sized businesses in Russia, states that the bank’s “key goals are to repeatedly expand its active client base and sustain double-digit revenue growth.” Another notes that the company is “actively expanding its corporate client base” in the payroll services industry.
Two years following Russia began its war once morest Ukraine, Raiffeisenbank, which had previously announced its intention to leave the market, has become a Western credit institution “with the largest operations in Russia,” writes FT. Today he is under the close attention of the US Treasury Department, and the European Central Bank is putting pressure on him, demanding to withdraw assets from Russia, journalists remind.
Raiffeisenbank began an investigation in connection with vacancies in the Russian Federation
Raiffeisenbank officials contacted by the newspaper for comment said the FT’s findings prompted the bank’s chief executive, Johann Strobl, to order an “immediate investigation.”
“The reduction of the Russian business will continue in 2024. Raiffeisen continued to work on a potential transaction, sale or spin-off that would lead to the deconsolidation of Raiffeisenbank Russia from the group,” the publication quotes the bank’s statement. At the same time, Raiffeisenbank noted that “the vacancy announcements do not reflect the measures taken by RBI (Raiffeisen Bank International – Ed.) to reduce Russian business, and do not correspond to future plans for Russian business.”
In turn, a senior executive of Raiffeisenbank in Austria said that advertising vacancies in Russia was “extremely inconvenient” and caused a panic reaction associated with demands to remove it and urgently rewrite it.
According to the bank’s management, it is in a difficult situation, since profits earned in Russia cannot be returned abroad for the purpose of further investment (repatriated), and any transaction for the sale of a business in the Russian Federation requires the approval of the Kremlin. At the same time, the bank needs to keep its business in Russia operational in order to attract a buyer, without overtly supporting Russia’s wartime economy, the bank added.
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2024-04-17 11:16:35
