Citi's Russia subsidiary to stop soliciting new business and clients

MOSCOW. March 14 (Interfax) - Citigroup, which said last year that it planned to exit retail banking in Russia, now intends to wind down other lines of business in the country.

"We are moving with urgency to complete our assessment of our operations in Russia. In April 2021, we announced our intent to exit our consumer business in the country. We have now decided to expand the scope of that exit process to include other lines of business and continue to reduce our remaining operations and exposure. Due to the nature of banking and financial services operations, this decision will take time to execute," Edward Skyler, Executive Vice President for Global Public Affairs, said in Citigroup blog.

"We have also decided to stop soliciting any new business or clients. We are providing assistance to multi-national corporations, many of whom are undergoing the complex task of unwinding their operations. We will continue to manage our existing regulatory commitments and our obligations to depositors, as well as support all of our employees during this very difficult time," he said.

Citigroup has exposure of $9.8 billion in Russia or 0.4% of its assets.

Citigroup announced plans in April 2021 to withdraw from retail business in 13 countries, including Russia. Alfa Bank, Raiffeisenbank and VTB were among those interested in the retail business - VTB made a non-binding legal proposal in August but its CFO, Dmitry Pianov, told Interfax in January this year that the bank no longer expected to buy Citi's retail business in Russia. Alfa-Bank also said it had lost interest.