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Weekly Lists
December 14, 2018 www.intellinews.com I Page 30
bne:Banker
US tells Ukraine it could cut Russia off from SWIFT in case of aggression
The US Special Representative for Ukraine Negotiations, Ambas- sador Kurt Volker threatened that the United States and its Western allies would take the “nuclear option” of cutting Russia off from the SWIFT international payments system in retaliation for Russian ag- gression in the shared waters of the Sea of Azov on December 6.
This is not the first time that the west has threatened to try and iso- late Russia by cutting its payment system off from the international SWIFT payments system and Russia has already built its own Mir payment system in anticipation of the potential move.
Cutting Russia off from SWIFT would represent a significant esca- lation in the war of words between Moscow and the West and is a nuclear option. The CBR is clearly taking the threat seriously and last week warned Russian banks to have a plan B for dealing with payments just in case.
Turkey’s economic woes may cost UniCredit more than €1.5bn this year after the Italian bank’s venture in the country sought funds for a second time in eight months.
Italy’s biggest bank plans to buy about 40% of the $1bn in additional Tier 1 bonds that Turkish unit Yapi Kredi is planning
to sell, according to two people with knowledge of the plan cited
by Bloomberg on December 11. Koc Holding, the Italian lender’s partner in the joint venture, is said to be buying the same amount. The Istanbul-based lender raised a similar amount through a rights offer in April. UniCredit invested around €330mn in that offer.
Only two bids were submitted during the final sale stage of the sale process involving Banca Romaneasca, part of the National Bank of Greece (NBG) group, Ziarul Financiar daily reported on December 10.
NBG group has put up for sale its Romanian subsidiary Banca Romaneasca again, after the Romanian central bank banned the sale of the local subsidiary to OTP Bank group.
The Romanian state-owned bank Eximbank and the US investment fund JC Flowers submitted bids, while another prospective bidder (Italian bank Intesa) abandoned in the last minute, according to the daily quoting unofficial sources.
UniCredit’s bill for Turkey’s economic woes seen at more than €1.5bn
Eximbank and JC Flowers compete for NBG's Romanian subsidiary Banca Romaneasca