MOSCOW - Russia’s dominant lender Sberbank will be forced to close its office in the United Arab Emirates early next year, its First Deputy Chairman Alexander Vedyakhin said on Monday, blaming sanctions pressure.after Moscow sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine on Feb 24. Sberbank is one of several major Russian banks to have been blocked from the international SWIFT payments system and some senior executives have been personally hit by sanctions.
He said Sberbank would continue serving clients in the UAE market and that active communications were underway with Chinese regulators about opening an office there. Sberbank’s European arm, based in Vienna, was closed by order of the European Central Bank in March, after the ECB warned that the bank faced failure due to a run on deposits.
Mr Vedyakhin declined to give full-year forecasts but said Sberbank was confident of being profitable in December.