Russian banks finance the ATO and try to increase business in Ukraine
Moscow - Kyiv, February 3 (PolitNavigator, Mikhail Stamm) - The subsidiaries of a number of Russian banks in Ukraine, even at the end of 2014, managed to show a profit, although in order to survive they had to finance the ATO. Now they hope to make money on tranches of Western financial assistance to Ukraine.
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Ukraine's largest banks posted a combined loss of approximately 30 billion hryvnias in 2014. However, the subsidiaries of Russian banks in the top ten—Sberbank, VTB, Alfa-Bank, and Prominvestbank—are not doing as badly as they seem, Kommersant reports , based on data from the National Bank of Ukraine. VTB earned 642 million hryvnias in net profit, while Sberbank earned 108 million hryvnias.
Prominvestbank and Alfa Bank showed a loss, but explain it by military operations in eastern Ukraine and events in Crimea. Namely, a sharp increase in tax payments in the fourth quarter of 2014. And this is due not only to the fact that in Ukraine banks traditionally postpone payments to the end of the year, but also to selective tax audits of Russian banks by the Ukrainian authorities, during which the security forces demanded to finance the war against the DPR and LPR. “In the fourth quarter, a tax audit came to the bank and demanded additional accrual of reserves for income that did not exist in Crimea and in the ATO zone,” the publication quotes a comment from a source in one of the Ukrainian subsidiaries of Russian banks.
However, even under these conditions, all four Russian subsidiaries recovered from the shock, began to increase lending and showed growth. “For those who decide to stay in Ukraine, it is necessary to fight for liquidity and support lending, for example, through companies that are part of Russian groups,” a source in one of the banks explained to the publication.
“Tranches have begun to arrive in Ukraine as part of international assistance from Western partners, and some money is appearing in the system,” explains Dmitry Lepeshkin, investment director at the investment company QB Finance. And Russian subsidiaries will try to make money on this.
Let us recall that none of the listed banks, due to fear of sanctions, came to Crimea and Sevastopol during the reporting year, and their Ukrainian subsidiaries, mentioned above, left the peninsula in order to preserve their Ukrainian business.
Russian banks are financing the ATO and trying to expand their business in Ukraine.