Raiffeisen Pulls Guidance After ECB Orders Russia Unit Cuts
- Lender’s efforts to extract value from Russia under scrutiny
- Russia, Belarus account for about half of first-quarter profit
A Raiffeisen Bank branch in Moscow.
Photographer: Andrey Rudakov/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
Raiffeisen Bank International AG suspended its full-year targets while maintaining the guidance for its core countries, after the European Central Bank ordered a faster reduction of its Russian operations.
The Viennese lender said earlier this month the ECB was preparing to order a 65% reduction of its loan book in Russia, where it operates the largest foreign-owned bank. That would mean cutting loan volumes in the country to about €2.2 billion ($2.4 billion), from €6 billion at end-September and as much as €13.7 billion in June 2022.