ECB’s Enria wants euro zone banks out of Russia faster

Andrea Enria, chairperson of the European Banking Authority, speaks at Reuters Summit interview in London, Britain, Sept. 25, 2017.  REUTERS/Afolabi Sotunde/File photo

The European Central Bank wants lenders to speed up their exit from Russia given the increased reputational, legal and financial risk of doing business there, supervisory chief Andrea Enria said on Tuesday.

Though Europe’s top supervisor has for months said he hoped European financial bodies would cut ties with their Russian assets, the matter has taken on new significance after Saturday’s 24-hour mutiny by the Wagner militia underscored the country’s political fragility.

In a letter to members of the European Parliament, Enria said his unit has “urged these banks to speed up their downsizing and exit strategies by adopting clear roadmaps and by regularly reporting to their management bodies and to ECB Banking Supervision on the execution of these plans”.

Austria’s Raiffeisen Bank International, one of the euro zone banks with the biggest ties to Russia, has been stepping up moves to hand its Russian arm to shareholders amid mounting pressure to do so, Reuters reported last month.

Its CEO Johann Strobl has said that he was working “at full steam” on a solution.

In a report this week on the European banks most exposed to Russia in the wake of the weekend’s events, JPMorgan pointed in addition to RBI to Hungary’s OTP Group and Italy’s UniCredit as having relatively large Russian businesses among European banks.

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