The head of Russia's biggest lender, Sberbank, said Friday that the bank was doing a "colossal" amount of work to re-orient itself toward domestic funding sources, as Western sanctions imposed on Moscow for its annexation of Crimea and support of separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine begin to hit Russia's banking sector.
Other top Russian bankers at an investment forum near the Black Sea warned that Asian money could not replace the loss of U.S. and European capital markets.
"Of course sanctions have had an impact on business conditions. … In the finance and banking sector we are feeling them in full. Practically all external markets are now closed, and we are now conducting a colossal amount of work to switch over to internal sources of funding," Sberbank president German Gref said, the Prime economic news agency reported.
Russian banks will need to refinance about $57 billion of external debt this year and next, according to estimates by Standard and Poor's credit rating agency.
State-owned Sberbank was sanctioned by the U.S. earlier this month and is banned from buying or selling new bonds, equity or other financial instruments with a maturity of more than 30 days in Europe.
INC News, 21/09/2014
No comments:
Post a Comment