RBC DAILY. Dutch lender ABN Amro decided to come back to Russia after three years following the assignment of its Russian division to Britain’s Royal Bank of Scotland. As press secretary of Commercial & Merchant Banking ABN Amro Jeroen van Maarshalkervird told RBC daily, ABN Amro plans to open a bank in Russia and has already filed documents to obtain a license fr om the Bank of Russia. “I’d like to highlight that at issue is not opening a large network or conducting retail business in Russia. Moscow is an important center of energy trade where some of our clients are based, and we want to have offices in all the cities wh ere they have business interests," he specified.
“Our office will mainly engage in settlements under international trade operations, primarily in commodities," Jeroen van Maarshalkervird pointed out. In addition, ABN Amro states it will establish its own bank fr om scratch and is not going to buy any banks. The bank also plans to engage in private banking and settlement operations.
Absolut Bank deputy management board chairman Evgeny Retyunsky notes that some time ago ABN Amro held very strong positions on the Russian corporate market: it took an active part in arranging syndicated loans, trade finance and cash management. “If ABN Amro managed to retain staff and technologies, we could expect a strong player to return to the market," Retyunsky said. At the same time, he believes that ABN Amro will hardly lay claims to roll out retail operations and its presence in Russian cities will most likely lim it to Moscow and Saint Petersburg.
According to Denis Korolev, director of financial services advisory at Ernst & Young, foreign banks that ‘grabbed’ Top 30 lenders, such as UniCredit Bank, Raiffeisenbank, Citibank and Rosbank, feel confident and have no intention to leave Russia. Foreign banks with a strategic focus on corporate and investment business (Deutsche Bank, ING Bank (Eurasia), the Royal Bank of Scotland and Commerzbank) also continue operations in Russia. At the same time, Korolev says, retail-focused banks that ‘caught the train’ late (Santander and Morgan Stanley) left Russia or are doing so, while universal banks that had no time to roll out business tend to scale down retail operations and focus on corporate and investment business (Barclays, BNP Paribas and Swedbank). The main reason behind the departure of foreign banks is a deteriorating environment on the Russian market, a drop in interest earned and strengthening positions of state-run banks, Korolev pointed out.
ABN Amro came to Russia in 1916, RBC daily notes, but the October revolution suspended its operations. The bank returned to Russia in 1978, but 30 years later it assigned its license to Britain’s RBS that planned to set up business in Russia from scratch. After its acquisition in 2007 by a consortium of RBS, Santander and Fortis for €71.1 bln ABN Amro was carved up among the deal’s participants. During the crisis 2008 some assets of Fortis Group were nationalized, including the offices received after the deal struck with ABN Amro. Currently, 92.6% of ABN Amro Group is directly controlled by the Dutch government.
