Raiffeisen Bank International, the largest western bank still doing business in Russia, has halted attempts to sell its unit in the country amid a rapprochement between Washington and Moscow, according to people familiar with the situation.
RBI has been under pressure from regulators and foreign governments including the EU and US to sell its Russia business following President Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
The already-complicated sale was further stymied in September after a Russian court froze the shares of Raiffeisen bank’s Russian subsidiary and in January put the bank on the hook for €2bn in damages. RBI said at the time that the legal battle had put a freeze on the transfer of any ownership of shares in its Russian arm.