By John O’Donnell, Francesco Canepa and Alexandra Schwarz-Goerlich
FRANKFURT/VIENNA (Reuters) – Austria’s Raiffeisen Bank International told Reuters on Friday it had been asked by the United States’ sanctions authority to give information about its business related to Russia.
The bank said it had received the request from the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) in January to “clarify payments business and related processes maintained by RBI in light of the recent developments related to Russia and Ukraine.”
The bank is deeply embedded in the Russian financial system and is one of the only two foreign banks on the Russian central bank’s list of 13 “systemically important credit institutions”, underscoring its importance to Russia’s economy, which is grappling with sweeping Western sanctions.
The bank said it was cooperating fully with the OFAC inquiry and that it understood the request was not triggered by a specific transaction or business. It said it had processes in place to ensure compliance with sanctions.
Almost a year since Moscow launched what it calls a “special military operation” in Ukraine, a handful of European banks, including Raiffeisen, remain in Russia.
Raiffeisen made a net profit of roughly 3.8 billion euros last year, thanks in large part to a 2 billion euro plus profit from its Russia business. Meanwhile, Russian savers have lodged more than 20 billion euros with the bank.
A Russian scheme to grant loan payment holidays to troops fighting in Ukraine, and for banks to write off the entire debt if they are killed or maimed, recently added to growing pressure for the remaining overseas lenders in Russia to leave.
(Editing by Paritosh Bansal and Anna Driver)
