Despite exit plans

RBI: Russian subsidiary seeks dozens of employees

The Russian Raiffeisen logo on a building in Moscow(Bild: APA/AFP/ALEXANDER NEMENOV)

The Russian subsidiary of Raiffeisen Bank International (RBI) has advertised dozens of new jobs despite the parent company's exit plans. More than 2,400 advertisements have been placed since December, reported the "Financial Times". Almost 1,500 of these were for sales management and customer service jobs.

According to the Financial Times, one advertisement states that the main objectives are "a multiple expansion of the active customer base and stable double-digit revenue growth". Raiffeisen is looking for "an account manager who attracts customers", the newspaper wrote, citing another advertisement.

Raiffeisen assures: Russia withdrawal will continue
When asked by the Reuters news agency, the bank explained that the reduction of its Russian business will continue in the 2024 financial year. The quotes from the job advertisements would not reflect the measures taken to date, nor would they correspond to the further plans for the Russian business.

In order to be able to sell Raiffeisenbank Russia, positions that are necessary for a functioning banking operation will continue to be filled or refilled. "We can confirm that the increase in the number of employees and the associated personnel costs is related to the independence of Raiffeisenbank Russia in the IT area in the run-up to a possible sale. These increases are not related to business growth," said RBI.

Exit plans underway, but number of employees rising
RBI is the largest western bank in Russia. According to RBI, the credit volume of the Russian subsidiary has been reduced by 56 percent since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, and the payment transaction business has also been significantly scaled back. The bank is also continuing to work on a possible sale or spin-off of its Russian business. The number of employees had risen by a good four percent to 9,942 by the end of 2023.

As the Financial Times further reports, bank boss Johann Strobl has now had the job advertisements reviewed. According to a report that the manager had received from the Russian subsidiary bank, standard information had been used in the advertisements that had wrongly not been updated since the start of the war.