Jason Corcoran in Moscow.
Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), the world’s seventh largest bank by market capitalization, is plotting its launch into the Russian market.
EmergingMarkets.me can exclusively reveal that RBC’s Wealth Management arm is to open a representative office in Moscow later this year due to “local client demand.”
Michael Lagopoulos, president and chief executive of the international arm of RBC Wealth Management, said the group is looking to open a representative office in Moscow later this year.
He said: “In the last 18 months we have opened representative offices in Beijing, Mumbai, Chile and Panama and have launched an onshore business in Brazil. Expansion into Russia means that RBC Wealth Management will have a presence in each of the BRIC countries, which we expect to be relatively high growth markets for the next several years”.
A number of international wealth players such as HSBC and Union Bancaire Privée set up private banking shops in Moscow last year. RBC is the first major foreign operator to do so since a domestic banking crisis and a number of corporate flare-ups last send domestic equity markets crashing by 70% in the last quarter of 2008. French bank BNP Paribas estimated that investors withdrew at least $280bn from August through to February 1.
As a result, international banks and brokerages are renewing their plans to expand into both retail and investment banking.
HSBC said the group is pushing ahead with its aggressive $200m expansion into Russia retail and private banking.
A senior manager source at HSBC in Moscow told EmergingMarkets.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.
