Russia’s Sberbank pulls out of Europe

The bank inks deal to sell its Austrian subsidiary

Sberbank has now withdrawn from the European market after finalising a deal to sell its Austrian subsidiary named Sber Vermögensverwaltungs AG in Abwicklung (Sberbank Europe AG — previous name), the bank said in a statement.

Sberbank has sold 100% of its shares in the branch after securing all the necessary regulatory approvals to complete the sale.

“We are satisfied with the terms of the deal. Sber is focused on developing financial services in Russia, where we have 106 million loyal customers, and potentially the countries that are considered friendly to us,” Sberbank First Deputy Chairman Alexander Vedyakhin noted.

The price of the deal is not disclosed. The statement also does not specify the branch’s buyer.

Sberbank was targeted by EU, US, and UK sanctions following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The bank later sold its Kazakhstan branch to a local holding. Moreover, Sberbank finalised sales of a number of streaming and cloud services it was developing.

In August 2022, Sberbank’s Czech subsidiary was declared bankrupt.

In September, the Russian bank sold its Swiss branch to m3 Groupe Holding SA, a Swiss investment group.

In January 2023, the bank announced that it would launch operations in occupied Crimea. Previously, Russia’s major banks were avoiding the peninsula out of fear to be targeted by sanctions imposed after the territory was annexed in 2014.

In 2021, Sberbank sold its branches in Eastern Europe: in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Hungary, Serbia, and Slovenia.