The last Western banks are leaving Russia. They don’t want to, but they have to: Goldman Sachs, one of largest US banks, said ‘goodbye’ to the Russian market, where it has operated for over 16 years, followed by Dutch ING, American Citibank, Italian Unicredit and Austrian Raiffeisen. [translated]

https://www.rp.pl/banki/art41753871-ostatnie-zachodnie-banki-opuszczaja-rosje-nie-chca-ale-musza

by Alien_P3rsp3ktiv

9 comments

  1. *Goldman Sachs Bank, the Russian subsidiary of the American giant, has reached an agreement to sell its company to the Balchug Capital Investment Fund registered in Armenia and obtained Putin’s approval for the transaction.*

    [Putin Allows Goldman Sachs to Sell Its Business in Russia, *Bloomberg, Jan. 31, 2025*](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-01-31/putin-allows-goldman-sachs-to-sell-its-business-in-russia)

    [No paywall link](http://archive.today/VHReT)

    *Goldman Sachs Bank, which began operations in Russia in 2008, did not serve individual clients: it invested in the stock market, obtaining money from foreign investors.*

    ***Nearly 17 years of Goldman Sachs in Russia***

    *Goldman Sachs Bank opened in Russia in the fall of 2008. They were not licensed to serve individual clients and they weren’t part of the deposit guarantee system. As a subsidiary of the international investment group Goldman Sachs, they specialized in investment banking and currency and stock exchange. They would obtain funding from their U.S. parent company and various investment entities based outside of Russia.*

    *In March of 2022, after Putin’s aggression against Ukraine and the imposition of sanctions on Moscow regime, Goldman Sachs announced the suspension of operations in Russia. Since then, Goldman Sachs Bank’s net assets have decreased by 78.2 percent and its equity by almost 55 percent.*

    *Nevertheless, last year [2024] Goldman Sachs Bank achieved a profit of 551 million rubles (equivalent of $5.6 mln) and retained 5.1 billion rubles in assets, as well as 3.5 billion rubles in capital.*

    Additional info about its activities in russia: [How Goldman Sachs profits from war in Ukraine, loophole in sanctions., NBC News, March 2022](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/goldman-sachs-profits-ukraine-war-loophole-sanctions-rcna19584)

    ***European banks are also packing up***

    *ING, the largest bank in the Netherlands, and one of the first Western banks to have entered the post-Soviet market after the collapse of the USSR, will follow. On January 28th the bank announced that it had reached an agreement to sell the Russian branch to an anonymous “Moscow-based investor”. The transaction is expected to be finalized in the third quarter of this year.*

    Additional sources: [Dutch bank ING to exit Russia after striking deal with Moscow investor., Reuters, Jan. 25, 2025](https://www.reuters.com/markets/deals/ing-groep-sell-russian-business-global-development-jsc-2025-01-28/)

    *According to “The Moscow Times,” the last American bank servicing individuals in Russia is also preparing to leave. ‘Citigroup’ began closing its operations at the end of last year [2024]. Before Putin’s aggression against Ukraine, this bank was among the twenty largest banks in the Russian Federation. As of today, the bank closed its last branch in Moscow, suspended the debit card services, its operations through the Fast Payment System of the Bank of Russia, cash transfers and withdrawals of cash from ATMs.*

    ***The European banks that have still remained in Russia, are limiting their activities under pressure from the European Central Bank.***

    *In August of 2024, ‘Raiffeisen’ stopped all outgoing dollar payments from Russia [due to US pressure](https://www.thebanker.com/content/cb1b402a-bfac-5962-b125-99a26bfbca58). However, ‘Raiffeisenbank’ [one of the leading banks in Austria, operating in Central and Eastern Europe] handled (according to its own estimates) half of all foreign payments of the Russian economy, which resulted in the highest profits in its history. Ukraine’s National Agency on Corruption Prevention (NACP) placed Austria’s Raiffeisen Bank on the International Sponsors of War list due to its large contributions to the Kremlin’s war chest.*

    Additional info: [Reuters: Ukraine refuses to remove Austrian Raiffeisen bank from ‘sponsors of war’ list., *Kyiv Independent, Feb. 15, 2024*](https://kyivindependent.com/reuters-ukraine-refuses-to-remove-austrian-raiffeisen-bank-from-sponsors-of-war-list/)

    *In January of this year [2025], a decision [to close its operations] was also made by the Italian ‘UniCreditBank’.*

    ***Return to the state of affairs of late USSR***

    *The total assets of foreign credit institutions in Russia at the beginning of 2024 amounted to $66 billion. This is almost half of the amount compared to the pre-war 2021 ($119 billion), and almost four times less than the record amount in 2012 ($239 billion). The activity of Western banks in Russia has shrunk to the level of the late USSR: in the late 1980s, their assets were valued at $40 billion, and in the last years of Brezhnev’s “stagnation” – at $10 billion.*

  4. They don’t give a fuck unless it is or is not making them money. Fuck em all.

  6. *Reluctantly*. I reluctantly wish all you banks to fuck right off out the door. Don’t touch the door knob on your way out, we don’t want any blood on it.

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