Austria closes Russian Sberbank Europe in Vienna
The closure was ordered by the European Central Bank (ECB). Since Monday, the bank has been allowed to make payments, transfers or other transactions in accordance with a moratorium that the FMA put into effect overnight.
Financial experts assume that Sberbank Europe AG (SRB) will soon slide into insolvency. A government commissioner appointed by the FMA as a supervisor for the institute is to determine whether and, if so, when such a fact is fulfilled.
On Monday night, the FMA justified its deposit and withdrawal moratorium – carried out as part of the financial sanctions against Russia – that the bank was in serious economic difficulties according to the ECB and that the bank was likely to fail.
Sberbank, majority-controlled by the Russian state, was one of the first targets of financial sanctions against Moscow. At the weekend, the West excluded Russian banks from the Swift international payment system and imposed sanctions on the Russian central bank, among other things.
This led to mass withdrawals, which caused the bank to run into liquidity problems. According to the ECB, the European subsidiary had total assets of 13.6 billion euros at the end of 2021. It looked after around 800,000 customers and employed 3,900 people.