Raiffeisen Bank is the last to leave Belarus
Raiffeisen Bank of Austria has warned all banks in the Belarusian jurisdiction about the termination of cooperation with them since August.
The Nasha Niva of Belarus writes about this with reference to sources in banking circles.
All Belarusian correspondent accounts will be closed. These are bank accounts opened by one bank in another to perform such financial transactions between them as transferring funds, crediting payments, buying and selling currency, etc. A correspondent account can be opened in one currency or in several currencies, depending on the needs of the bank.
Until now, the Austrian Raiffeisen Bank has remained the last bank to cooperate with Belarusian banks in sending payments in dollars/euros to Europe and back. Now the Belarusian business has several months to come up with a new settlement scheme with Western partners, the newspaper notes.
"Someone has already withdrawn their foreign economic activity to another jurisdiction, but there are no guarantees that we will not eventually be "asked" to leave the conditional Kazakhstan, because the Americans and Europeans are increasing pressure on those who help circumvent sanctions," the interlocutor of the Belarusian newspaper said.
At the same time, Priorbank, the Belarusian subsidiary of Raiffeisen Bank, began sending letters to customers asking them not to specify the corresponding bank for payment data, otherwise they would not be delivered.
Recall that in February 2022, the US authorities began checking against Raiffeisen Bank International due to possible complicity of Russian aggression against Ukraine and suspicious transactions.
On March 17, 2022, i.e. almost immediately after the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, Raiffeisen Bank International announced its readiness to leave Russia. However, the Bank has not left the Russian market.
Then Raiffeisen Bank International was included in the list of international sponsors of the war due to the fact that its bank in Russia continues to operate even in the second year of a full-scale war. Raiffeisen Bank International was pressured by the European Central Bank and by its own shareholders.
On April 30, RBI finally decided on the future of its bank in Russia: it will be either a sale or a separation.
On May 5, Raiffeisen Bank announced that it had closed all correspondent accounts of Russian banks.
At the same time, it became known that Raiffeisen tripled its profit in Russia for the quarter.