Russian President Vladimir Putin has approved the restructuring of Italian lender UniCredit’s domestic subsidiary.
The decision was revealed in official documentation, paving the way for the sale of the resulting spin-off.
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The group announced in May a preliminary accord to divest sections of its Russian banking arm to an unnamed “well-established private investor” in the UAE, while preserving solely its local payment processing activities.
Under this plan, the Russian unit will be partitioned, allowing UniCredit to retain full control of the payments division as the UAE buyer purchases the balance of the business.
Financial terms of the transaction were not made public.
UniCredit anticipated completing the divestment in the opening half of 2027, conditional upon receiving the necessary official clearances.
The lender’s Russian branch caters to individual and corporate customers.
Alongside Austria’s Raiffeisen and Hungary’s OTP, UniCredit has stood as one of the principal Western institutions operating in Russia, maintaining a presence following the conflict in Ukraine despite demands from European supervisors to disengage.
Fellow Italian institution Intesa Sanpaolo, which conducts only corporate operations in the country, obtained equivalent presidential clearance in September 2023 without subsequently severing its Russian ties.
Separately, Hungary’s OTP Bank is currently reviewing withdrawal options from the Russian territory as regulators assess its footprint during a bid to acquire Baltic financial group Luminor Bank, according to Bloomberg.
In February this year, Citi completed the sale of its former Russian subsidiary, AO Citibank, to Renaissance Capital, marking the bank’s full withdrawal from Russia.
Meanwhile, in April, ING called off the planned disposal of ING Bank (Eurasia) JSC to Global Development JSC.
The bank said it ended the agreement after concluding there was no credible prospect of the purchaser securing the required clearances.
