Russia to block foreign banks from exiting country in retaliation for measures against Russian banks abroad

MOSCOW. July 15 (Interfax) - Foreign banks will not be able to pull out of Russia as long as the subsidiaries of Russian banks are deprived of the opportunity to function properly abroad.

"Our state-owned banks, which are under sanctions, and our banks in general that are under sanctions, have had quite big problems with debottlenecking at their banks located abroad. In some cases, they [foreign regulators] have even been seen to take away the shareholder's right to manage them, which is true legal chaos. We discussed at our subcommittee that now we will not, until the situation improves, give permission to sell the assets of foreign banks in Russia. If [requests] are received we'll reject them," Deputy Finance Minister Alexei Moiseyev told reporters.

"We're talking about the subsidiaries of foreign banks. Everyone knows their names. It turns out that we are letting them go normally - Rosbank and the like - while ours can't do anything there," Moiseyev said.

Asked about the prospects for transferring subsidiaries of foreign banks to local market participants, Moiseyev said that so far this was not on the agenda, but he did not rule out its appearing there.

"Maybe we'll back [such ideas] as the situation unfolds. We read news that Lithuania is going to take everything away from everyone... If they take it away, we will take similar measures, including, perhaps, of this kind. At this stage, the issue has not yet arisen, but I don't rule it out in the future," he said.