Jason Corcoran in Moscow.
British banking giant HSBC is pushing ahead with its aggressive $200m expansion into Russia retail and private banking in spite of the global economic slowdown and its management’s bleak analysis of a recovery.
A senior source at HSBC in Moscow told Emeringmarkets.me that the bank will open its first five branches in Russia in June, while its private banking services are already operational. The source scotched rumours the bank was scaling back its ambitious plans to roll out retail banking in Russia’s major cities.
In March last year, HSBC said it earmarked $20om to invest in Russia through organic growth rather than by acquiring bank branches. Johan Sekora has been seconded to Moscow from Japan after a successful launch of HSBC there.
The bank has already opened three new regional representative offices in Ekaterinburg, Novosibirsk and St. Petersburg, which will offer corporate clients a range of commercial banking services.
The drive by HSBC into Russia is being headed by Stuart Lawson who took over as chief executive 15 months ago from Jon Hartley.
Lawson was chief executive of Citibank’s Russian business in the 1990s, before becoming chairman of Russian bank Deltabank in 2001 and taking over in 2004 as chairman and chief executive of Bank Soyuz, a Russian bank controlled by oligarch Oleg Deripaska.
British rival Barclays has already completed much of its rebranding of 36 branches of Russia’s Expobank which it acquiein March last year for a whopping $745 m.
