Barclays may come to an agreement with a buyer
for its Russian retail business very soon.
Kazakh bank Kazkommertsbank is said to be the
likeliest buyer.
Go deeper with GlobalData
Barclays’ sale of its retail banking business
in Russia comes less than three years after it paid $745m to
acquire 32-branch-strong Expobank.
Barclays CEO
Bob Diamond admitted in mid-February that the bank was unable
to compete in the Russian retail banking market, as it is dominated
by state-owned domestic lenders.
Barclays is instead tuning its focus on
investment banking in Russia.
The bank is not the only Western lender
struggling in the Russian retail banking territory.
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By GlobalData
HSBC sold its Russian retail business in mid-June to Citi, who
has a stronger foothold in Russia as it has been present there
since 1993 – unlike Barclays and HSBC, who entered the market in
2008 and 2009 respectively.
And on 20 June,
French bank BNP Paribas announced a joint venture agreement with
Sberbank to offer consumer loans in retail stores across
Russian and expect to grab a 30% share in the market within the
next two to three years.
