Since July 26, Raiffeisenbank has suspended the ability to open new brokerage accounts for retail investors. This was reported by RBC with reference to the bank's press service.
Raiffeisenbank said it was «forced to gradually reduce the volume of operations on the Russian market» due to the European Central Bank's (ECB) order to the RBI group.
In April, the ECB outlined parameters for RBI to reduce its business in Russia. By 2026, loans to Raiffeisenbank clients should decrease by 65% compared to the third quarter of 2023. International payments should also decrease.
The RBI then reported that the ECB's demands «go far beyond RBI's own plans to further reduce its Russian business and could negatively impact plans to sell Raiffeisenbank.»
After the start of the full-scale invasion of the Russian army in Ukraine, the Austrian Raiffeisenbank did not leave Russia. Because of this, in August 2023, the Czech police began an investigation of the bank for terrorist financing. Its clients complained that Raiffeisenbank continued to pay taxes on profits to the Russian budget.
For 2022, Raiffeisenbank was supposed to pay 559 million euros in profit taxes to the Russian budget. Under the excess profit tax passed by Russian lawmakers in June 2023, the bank is obliged to pay about 100 million euros more, Ukrainian authorities calculated. They added RBI to the list of «international sponsors of war».