Citibank, one of the largest Western banks in Russia and previously ranked in the top 20 in the country by assets, is closing its operations.
Starting November 15, the Russian branch of Citibank will shut down its last remaining retail banking branch, according to a statement from Citi reported by Frank RG.
From September 20, all Citibank debit cards will be deactivated. As of September 25, operations through the Central Bank's Fast Payment System, as well as transfers, cash withdrawals at terminals, and QR code purchases, will stop.
Citigroup planned to sell its retail business in Russia as early as 2021, and after the invasion of Ukraine, decided to effectively close it. The volume of loans issued by the bank since early 2022 has dropped by 98%, to 2.4 billion rubles. Deposits from individuals have decreased from 154 billion rubles to just 1 billion, and business account funds have fallen by over 90 times—from 346 billion rubles to 3.8 billion rubles, according to its reports.
Following Citi, European banks are also shutting down their Russian operations. Raiffeisenbank, the largest among them, stopped international transfers for most clients at the end of August. As of early 2024, the combined assets of foreign banks in Russia amounted to just $66 billion, half of what they were before the war in 2021 ($119 billion) and nearly a quarter of the record set in 2012 ($239 billion).
The financial bridges built by Russia with the West over three decades have been nearly completely burned. The presence of Western banks in Russia is now comparable to the late Soviet Union: in the late 1980s, their assets were valued at $40 billion, and during the final years of Brezhnev's stagnation, at $10 billion.
