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The US regulator has authorised Russia’s Sberbank to sell its subsidiary in Kazakhstan, which fell under sanctions over the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Interfax reported.
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During the KazanSummit forum, Sberbank senior vice president and Sberbank International head Timur Kozintsev revealed that the bank has received a licence for the divesture from the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).
“At the moment, with the support of the regulator, we have received an OFAC license, which allows us to carry out controlled work for several months to reduce our assets, to withdraw from the market,” the bank’s executive said.
“We are seeing increased demand from private and state entities in Kazakhstan, Russian investors, as well as investors from Turkey and the Middle East,” Kozintsev added.
Earlier, the bank revealed that investors from China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates have expressed interest in buying the Kazakhstan bank.
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By GlobalDataIn early April, the US imposed full bocking sanctions on Sberbank and several of its subsidiaries including those in Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Belarus.
The move seeks to freeze Sberbank’s assets in the US and bar US citizens from transacting with the bank.
As a result of the sanctions, the assets of Kazakhstan-based banks have halved, but the lender managed to prevent a run on deposits and liquidity.
“Due to introduction of sanctions, our assets declined nearly twofold, that is, in two months we have actually drawn a line under the results of the last two years,” Kozintsev said adding that “Thanks to the unprecedented support of shareholders, we fully stabilized the situation in the bank, not delaying payments by a single day, we were able to prevent huge outflows of deposits and liquidity.”
