BNP Paribas Stops New Business in Russia, Joining European Peers
BNP Paribas Stops New Business in Russia, Joining European Peers
(Bloomberg) -- BNP Paribas SA is stopping all new business in Russia, joining European peers in winding down their local operations after the country invaded Ukraine.
The Paris-based bank has informed its corporate clients that its local unit will no longer be able to process their transactions from the end of March, the bank said in an emailed statement late Monday.
BNP Paribas is joining a growing group of lenders that are pulling back from Russia amid wide-ranging sanctions imposed against the country. In the past weeks, Goldman Sachs Group Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co., Deutsche Bank AG and Commerzbank AG have all taken steps to cut business in Russia.
BNP rose 1% at 9:14 a.m. in Paris trading on Tuesday, paring the decline this year to 12%.
The lender previously announced it would stop providing new financing in the country and postponed its investor day until the summer. BNP’s total gross exposure to Russia amounted to about 1.3 billion euros ($1.4 billion) at the end of December. It exited the local retail banking market in 2012 and ended its Russian consumer finance activities in 2020.
Earlier this month, the lender confirmed the payment of a 3.67 euro cash dividend for 2021. Raiffeisen Bank International, the most exposed European lender to Russia and Ukraine, has halted the payment of its dividend as it assesses the impact of the sanctions.
French rival Societe Generale SA, which also has a larger exposure to Russia, has said it is seeking to reduce its risk in the country while remaining “flexible” on its local unit Rosbank PJSC. Credit Agricole SA said it paused the financing of new projects in Russia.
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