By Valentina Za
MILAN – The latest wave of sanctions on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine has thrown the global banking industry deeper into turmoil, as Western countries try to squeeze Moscow’s access to cash for its economy and international trade.
Some Russian banks are being excluded from the SWIFTinternational payments system and, other sanctionstarget the country’s central bank to stop it from using itsforeign reserves.
The moves aim to undermine Moscow’s ability to weather thewider economic sanctions but they also impact Western bankswhich are exposed to Russia’s economy.
In Europe, Italian and French banks have the largest Russianexposure, representing just over $25 billion each at the end ofSeptember, followed by Austrian banks with $17.5 billion, datafrom the Bank of International Settlements show.
The exposure of U.S. banks totals $14.7 billion, accordingto BIS data.
Following are some of the banks with significant Russianexposure.
EUROPEAN BANKS
RAIFFEISEN BANK INTERNATIONAL (RBI)
RBI has operated in Russia since the collapse of the SovietUnion and its business there contributed almost a third to thegroup’s net profit of 1.5 billion euros last year and represents 18% of consolidated equity.
The Austrian lender’s Russian bank is the country’s 10th-largest by assets, employing around 8,700 staff.
RBI’s overall Russian exposure totalled 22.85 billion euros ,more than half relating to the corporate private sector, it saidin its 2021 results presentation.
Russia’s central bank accounts for 8% of RBI’s exposure tothe country, sovereign entities 4% and Russian banks 2%,based on the presentation.
The overall figure comprises 11.6 billion euros in customerloans (or 11.5% of group), more than 80% of which are in Russianroubles.
Cross-border exposure to Russia is only 1.6 billion euroswith no parent funding from Vienna. Raiffeisen also holds 2.2billion euros in loans to Ukrainian customers.
Provisions against losses cover 64.3% of RBI’s impairedexposures in Russia.
RBI Chief Executive Johann Strobl told Reuters last weekthat the group’s Russian subsidiary “had a very strong liquidityposition and (was) recording inflows.”
SOCIETE GENERALE
Societe Generale, which controls Russian bank Rosbank, had18.6 billion euros of overall exposure to Russia at the end of last year – or 1.7% of the group total.
More than 80%, or 15.4 billion euros is held locally by Rosbank while cross-border exposure amounts to 3.2 billion euros, including 600 million euros in off-balance sheet items.
Societe Generale started doing business in Russia in 1872, left the country in 1917 and returned in 1973.
The French group’s Russian activities in 2021 represented 2.7% of group net income.
The bank said on Thursday it could withstand an extreme scenario where its Russian business is confiscated, which would shave only half a percentage point off its core capital.
Of SocGen’s Russian exposure, 41% is to the retail sector, and 31% to the corporate one. Exposure to Russian sovereign entities stands at 3.7 billion euros.
UNICREDIT
UniCredit’s overall exposure to Russia totalled 14.2 billion euros as of mid-2021. That includes 8 billion euros in loans extended by its Russian arm.
The rest are off-balance sheet items and cross-borderloans mainly granted by UniCredit SpA towards large corporatesoutside of Russia.
The Italian bank’s Russian subsidiary, AO UniCredit Bank, ranks as the country’s 14th largest bank. Its 2.3 billion euros in equity accounts for 3.7% of the group’s total.
A complete write-off of the Russian business would cost UniCredit around 1 billion euros, knocking 35 basis points off its core capital ratio.
UniCredit said last week its Russian franchise accounted foronly around 3% of group revenues and provisions covered 84% ofits non-performing exposures.
INTESA SANPAOLO
Italy’s biggest bank has financed major investment projectsin Russia, such as the Blue Stream gas pipeline and the sale ofa stake in oil producer Rosneft. It handles more thanhalf of all commercial transactions between Italy and Russia.
Intesa’s loan exposure to Russia was 5.57 billion euros atthe end of 2021, or 1.1% of the total.
Its subsidiaries in Russia and Ukraine have assets,respectively, of 1 billion euros and 300 million euros, whichtogether represent just 0.1% of the group’s total assets.
Intesa said on Thursday it was conducting a strategic review of its Russian presence.
ING
The Dutch bank has around 4.5 billion euros in outstandingloans with Russian clients and around 600 million euros withclients in Ukraine, out of a total loan book worth more than 600billion euros.
U.S. BANKS
CITIGROUP INC
The U.S. bank said this week its total exposure to Russiaamounted to nearly $10 billion and it was working to bring it down.
Citigroup listed Russia as 21st among its top 25 countryexposures with $5.4 billion of loans, securities and fundingcommitments at end-2021 – 0.3% of overall exposures based on aregulatory filing.
On Monday, Citigroup gave more details, taking the count for”total third-party exposure” to $8.2 billion. That includes $1.0billion in cash at the Bank of Russia and other financialinstitutions and $1.8 billion of reverse repos.
Citigroup also said it has $1.6 billion of exposures toadditional Russian counterparties outside of its Russiansubsidiary that are not included in that $8.2 billion.
As a comparison, Goldman Sachs Group Inc reported ina filing last month $293 million in net exposure to Russia, aswell as a total of $414 million of market exposure as ofDecember 2021.
($1 = 0.9016 euros)
(Reporting by Valentina Za;Editing by Elaine Hardcastle)
