The largest Western banks remaining in Russia paid more than 800 million euros in taxes to the Kremlin last year, four times the pre-war level, despite promises to minimize their influence in Russia after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Financial Times reports, UNN writes.
Details
As stated, "the seven largest European banks by assets in Russia - Raiffeisen Bank International, UniCredit, ING, Commerzbank, Deutsche Bank, Intesa Sanpaolo and OTP - reported combined profits of more than €3 billion in 2023." "This profit was three times higher than in 2021 and was partly generated by funds that banks cannot withdraw from the country," the publication writes.
"The jump in profitability resulted in European banks paying about 800 million euros in taxes, up from 200 million euros in 2021, according to a Financial Times analysis. This was in addition to the profits of American lenders such as Citigroup and JPMorgan," the publication says.
The taxes paid by European banks, "equivalent to about 0.4% of all expected non-energy revenues of the Russian budget for 2024," are said to be "an example of how foreign companies remaining in the country help the Kremlin maintain financial stability despite Western sanctions.
Data from US banks are not included in the €800 million total because they do not report comparable Russian results for the group accounts used in the FT calculations.