VTB expects that the merger of VTB 24 and the reorganization of business in Europe will allow the group to save up to 18 billion rubles a year in total, said VTB CEO Andrei Kostin.
“Today we have two important directions. The first is the merger and merger of VTB 24 with VTB Bank. We plan that this will save us about 15 billion rubles a year. The second process is the consolidation of our European holding, where we are such a pan-European a bank (we are creating) on the basis of our bank in Frankfurt in Germany instead of the three banks that we had in Austria and France yet. This will give us approximately 3 billion rubles in savings. That is, we plan to save 18 billion a year on this reorganization. , which we plan to complete by the end of the year, or maybe we will capture the European holding next year, «Kostin said in an interview with the Russia 24 TV channel.
He noted that this is not the first reorganization carried out by VTB. “This is not the first time we are reorganizing something, we have acquired quite a lot of banks in the country and abroad,” said the head of VTB.
VTB acquired a controlling stake in Bank of Moscow in 2011 and subsequently reorganized the business. The process of joining the «Bank of Moscow» was completed in May 2016 — the business of the capital’s bank became a retail line of VTB. By joining the Bank of Moscow, accompanied by staff cuts and optimization of office space, VTB planned to save up to 10 billion rubles a year.
Currently, VTB 24 Bank is undergoing a merger with VTB. This issue has been discussed since the end of 2014. In October 2016, Kostin said that the merger of banks is planned to be completed by the end of 2017, which will allow VTB Group to significantly reduce management costs, as well as increase the level of management and synergy from the activities of the second largest bank in the Russian Federation.
Kostin in a September interview with RIA Novosti said that VTB had made a decision to reorganize its business in Europe. VTB will operate in Europe under a single license, while earlier there were three licenses for each country — France, Austria and Germany.
According to Kostin, VTB decided to create a center with a single license in Frankfurt due to the increasing role of the city as a result of the UK’s exit from the EU. However, the head of the bank noted, this does not exclude the possibility of working on the territory of the entire European Union.
