A Raiffeisen Bank logo in Moscow, 21 August 2023. Photo: EPA-EFE/YURI KOCHETKOV

Raiffeisen Bank International (RBI), the largest Western bank still operating in Russia, has suspended its planned withdrawal from the country amid the thaw in relations between Washington and Moscow, The Financial Times reported on Friday.

According to one FT source, the decision, made in February, was down to global uncertainty and the changing relationship between the US and Russia. “It is in order to assess the situation and if the position of the US might change,” the source added. Another FT source said that any real attempt to sell Raiffeisen Bank’s Russian business had ceased, though the situation could change again.

The bank itself said that while the process of selling its business was “ongoing”, a court case in Russia was stopping the transaction being completed. “At the moment RBI’s shares in Raiffeisen Bank Russia are blocked and a transaction would therefore not be possible at this point in time,” they added.

A Russian court froze the shares of RBI’s Russian subsidiary in September. The decision came as the result of a lawsuit filed by Rasperia Trading, a Russian investment company once owned by sanctioned oligarch Oleg Deripaska, against Austrian construction company Strabag and its shareholders, which include an RBI affiliate.

After the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, Western governments and regulators put pressure on RBI to sell its Russian subsidiary, with Washington threatening to block the bank’s access to the US financial system due to its continued business dealings in Russia.