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Raiffeisen Bank International expects to be ordered by the European Central Bank to speed up its withdrawal from Russia, the Austrian bank said in a statement on Thursday.
According to the ECB’s latest draft proposals, RBI will be told to cut its loans to Russian customers by 65 per cent from its current level and scale down its international payments business. Failure to comply may lead to enforcement actions, including fines.
“RBI expects to be asked by the ECB to further reduce its business activities in Russia to a very large extent,” the bank said. “We understand that this is a measure to implement the strategy announced by the ECB to reduce the exposure of European banks to Russia. RBI will carefully analyse the requirements placed on it.”
RBI has previously responded to pressure by regulatory bodies such as the ECB and the US Treasury by cutting back on its lending. Despite reducing its corporate loan book in the country by 56 per cent over the past two years, it remains one of the largest western banks operating in Russia.
The ECB’s proposed measures, which according to RBI, “go far beyond its own plans” to eventually exit the country, could disrupt its efforts to sell its Russian business, which has been on the negotiation table with two Russian counterparts for over a year with little progress.
The Financial Times reported earlier this week that RBI has apparently contradicted its pledge to exit Russian markets with the posting of dozens of advertisements for Russia-based jobs, indicating its plans to grow in the country.
Since 2022, RBI’s workforce in Russia has continued to grow, and its Russian division is currently the most profitable part of its international operations, generating half of its earnings last year.
Due to stringent laws put in place by the Kremlin, RBI’s profits made in the country cannot be repatriated and any sale of the business would require presidential approval.
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The European Central Bank has raised concerns with UniCredit regarding the high turnover of top managers at the Italian lender, as reported by Reuters, citing two anonymous sources.
According to Reuters’ sources, European banking supervisors recently raised this issue with UniCredit as part of their feedback during routine risk assessments. Reuters was unable to establish the specifics of the concerns, as both the ECB and UniCredit declined to comment.
UniCredit has experienced a series of senior departures since CEO Andrea Orcel took the helm in 2021 and overhauled the bank’s senior leadership, appointing new top executives as he dismantled its previous co-head structure.
While leadership transitions are typical with the appointment of a new CEO, UniCredit’s turnover within its senior ranks exceed those of other Italian banks, such as Intesa Sanpaolo, which has maintained a stable top team for nearly a decade.
UniCredit has seen notable turnover in key positions, with Bart Schlatmann becoming the third chief operating officer since Orcel’s tenure began. Schlatmann succeeded UniCredit veteran Ranieri de Marchis, who assumed the COO role in April 2021 but departed in May 2022.
Other significant departures include Niccolo Ubertalli, who exited in July 2022, a year after assuming responsibility for UniCredit’s domestic business. An internal memo released the same month announced the departure of Stefano Vecchi, who served as the head of UniCredit’s Italian private banking and wealth management unit for 10 months.
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Vietnam’s central bank has confirmed that it is engaged in a rescue operation of Saigon Commercial Bank, which it says was placed under special supervision in October 2022 following a run on its deposit withdrawals.
According to press reports earlier this week, the central bank injected nearly $24bn into SCB to prevent its collapse.
SCB experienced a run of deposit withdrawals triggered by the arrest of real estate magnate Truong My Lan. Lan was sentenced to death last week for her involvement in a fraud scheme that included misappropriating more than $12bn from SCB.
Acknowledging the challenges faced by SCB, but adding that the bank was “stable”, State Bank of Vietnam deputy governor Dao Minh Tu told reporters at a press conference, “SCB has caused difficulties or may be in crisis. Like other central banks, we have to intervene. It’s in accordance with our regulations”.
“We continue to have a roadmap to restructure it step-by-step and study possible mechanisms, solutions to help the bank recover,” he added.
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Macquarie Bank has been fined A$10mn ($6.4mn) by the Federal Court of Australia for its failure to implement adequate controls to detect and prevent unauthorised fee transactions carried out by third parties on customer accounts.
According to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, the bank permitted customers to grant varying levels of transaction authority to third parties, such as financial advisers and stockbrokers, including the authority to withdraw fees.
Meanwhile, Macquarie provided a bulk transacting tool to third parties, enabling multiple withdrawals across several customer accounts simultaneously.
However, between May 2016 and January 2020, it neglected to establish controls to monitor whether third-party bulk transactions under the fee authority were indeed for fees.
Acknowledging the breach of its statutory obligation, Macquarie stated that it had implemented effective controls from January 2020. Nonetheless, the bank’s earlier failures allowed financial adviser Ross Hopkins to fraudulently withdraw approximately A$2.9mn from his clients’ accounts without detection.
Hopkins, who received a six-year prison sentence in 2021 for misappropriating client funds, conducted these transactions using Macquarie’s bulk transaction system.
Macquarie said in a statement that it had fully reimbursed the 13 affected clients following the financial adviser’s failure to compensate them for their losses. The bank has agreed to pay the fine imposed by the ASIC.
