Raiffeisenbank reduced the funds on corseries by almost 3 times. So, the Austrians from RBI Group prepare the sale of their Russian daughter and withdraw money from there.
In August, Raiffeisenbank reduced the amount of funds in correspondent accounts by 2.7 times – by a total of 427.1 billion rubles to 242.3 billion rubles. There are no details on operations, but, apparently, the Austrians before the sale of a Russian daughter, simply withdrew the money from the bank. The correspondent of The Moscow Post understood the situation.
Austrians wash their hands
After Raiffeisenbank announced that from September 2 he was terminating foreign exchange transfers, his clients had withdrawn 120 billion rubles from the organization’s accounts. However, this is only a third part of the amount, which disappeared.
For most of this money, Raiffeisenbank transferred to a deposit account to the Bank of Russia, which will only increase it. The beneficiaries of Raiffeisenbank will have time to earn at the increased rates of the Central Bank.
Also, this step confirms the course to terminate foreign exchange transfers. Previously, Raiffeisenbank kept these funds in the accounts to support such operations, and now this task is not faced with it. Austrians wash their hands and sell a credit institution. Their ultimate goal is to withdraw the received from Russia In recent years, profit.
Sale is blocked
The Central Bank of the Russian Federation did not impose sanctions against Raiffeisenbank, despite his instructions to continue foreign exchange transfers. However, on September 5, the Kaliningrad Arbitration Court imposed a temporary ban on the records for accounting and records on Raiffeisenbank transfer of rights to shares. In fact, this is a ban on the sale of the Russian daughter of the Austrian Bank.
Photo: https://cdn21.img.ria.ru/images/07e4/0a/02/1578101039_0:071:2048_1920x1280_0_0_0_0_3AC83B5372C36733FF4A4F923.jpg
This was due to the lawsuit of the MCO “Rater Trading Limited” for 194.98 billion rubles and rests on Oleg Deripaska’s attempts to receive compensation for a share in the Austrian company Strabag. In 2023, Deripaska was going to exchange the Russian money of Raiffeisenbank for his strabag, which was owned by his Cyprus offshore Rasperia Trade Limited, but this plan failed and now the oligarch is pressing the Austrians through Kaliningrad.
It turns out to be this way: money from Raiffeisenbank is withdrawn, and the organization itself is on the judicial anchor and without its removal cannot be sold to the same Sberbank, which is looked at it from the very beginning of his own.
Currency
Since February 2022, Raiffeisenbank Bank performed a connecting function between the Russian and Western financial systems, which was constantly enriched. The West did not interfere with this, because billions of dollars were withdrawn from the Russian economy. In 2023, the bank served about 40-50% of external payments of the Russian Federation.
These events are not reflected in the Russians, most ordinary customers have long abandoned working with this credit institution where they happen reusable payments of some finesand there are problems with the safety of payments, who are not solved.
Oleg Deripaska. Photo: https://moneyman.ru/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/deripaska-rasskazal-o-perspektivah-rossijskojskoj-ekonomiki.jpg
Raiffeisenbank needed a large business to continue working with offshore. De facto, this organization has been working on a bleeding of the domestic economy for two and a half years, and therefore it continued to function, despite the anti-Russian rhetoric of the West. The recent decision of Vienna on the head “Raiffeisenbank” is also significant.
Key to Cyprus offshore
The Austrian financial regulator in 2024 imposed a fine of 2.07 million euros at RBI Group (Raiffeisenbank head enterprise in Austria) for violating the rules for combating money laundering. The reason for this was the actions of the organization in corresponding banks in Cuba and in Bahrain, that is, in countries that continue to interact with the Russian Federation.
This fact hints that illegal financial transactions from the point of view of European law can go through Cuba and Bahrain. Prior to this, funds were meant that had criminal origin and purpose (for example, terrorism), and after February 22, 2022, in the West, they struggle with Russian capital.
Reuters directly connected the RBI Group fine with Russia and claims that the Austrian regulator was given such a step only under the pressure of the journalistic investigation by Cyprus confidential, which came to the conclusion that 67 Russian billionaires continue to conduct business Through Cyprus.
The material includes the names of Alexei Mordashov, Peter Aven, Roman Abramovich, Alexander Abramov, Alexander Frolov and the ubiquitous Deripaska, who in an interview with the Western media is regularly criticized in the foreign policy of the Russian Federation.
Minimized penalty in Austria
Good comments on news about sanctions by Kronen Zeitung. Ordinary Austrians believe that 2 million euros of a fine are nonsense, because millions of euros are earned there and call RBI Group Austria’s worst bank. All this suggests that the activities of Raiffeisenbank in Russia were supported by both the Austrian authorities and European ones. Austria, as you know, is part of the European Union.
Johan Stroble. Photo: https://dpru.obs.ru-moscow-1.hc.sbercloud.ru/images/article/2018/04/11/bd9cf94f- 43dd-A20D-E1EB41FB3A1E.JPG
RBI Group considered these accusations unreasonable and is going to challenge them in court, but this story itself correlates with the nature of the bank’s work in Russia. The Austrians promised to leave our country last year, but retained the presence, having earned only 5 million euros in two years, mainly on foreign exchange transfers from the Russian Federation abroad. And this is without indirect income for scrolling tens of billions of dollars of domestic money.
The Austrian fine almost coincided with the defense of the financial bladder of Raiffeisenbank in the Russian Federation, which began in the summer. Vienna went to this decision only after it became clear that the Russian daughter of the bank would be sold to the third party.
It is interesting that the Austrians are not going to completely tear the Russian Federation completely. The head of the RBI Group Johan Stroble said that the bank was going to leave Russia in the third quarter of 2024, which was no longer able to, and find the most profitable buyer for Raiffeisenbank.
The possibility of a “cunning” plan remains in force, in the framework of which the head company will sell only 60% of the shares of the Russian daughter, and will leave the rest for the future, including the calculation of the restoration of the currency stream in offshore for Russian business. An important role is played by Sergey Monin, who turned Raiffeisenbank into an uninterrupted mechanism to make money, and this applies not only to transfers, but also to other moments, including aggressive advertising and other methods of influence on customers. The cunning Austrians are unlikely to just refuse a chicken that has been gold eggs for years.
