UniCredit quadrupled its net profit in 2022 to RUB 56.5 billion

At the same time, the loan portfolio and client funds have decreased significantly, the published document says.

The loan portfolio amounted to just under 700 billion rubles, which is 1.4 times less than in the previous year. Customer funds are estimated at 682.7 billion rubles (1.3 times less).

The bank, however, managed to significantly reduce operating expenses (by 17% to 33.9 billion rubles, that is, 7.4 billion rubles less than in 2021), which affected the positive dynamics.

It should be noted that the Italian group UniCredit in its report showed a loss of the Russian business of 220 million euros by 2022 (in 2021, the net profit of this segment amounted to 218 million euros).

Forbes recalls that this dissonance is due to differences in the types of reports. The parent company presents the data in accordance with international standards. Russian – according to domestic (RAS).

At the same time, the central bank last year allowed Russian banks to disregard loan quality deterioration stemming from sanctions against Russia, leading to major discrepancies in reporting.

At the end of 2022, the ECB urged UniCredit to exit the Russian market by selling the corresponding business segment to “local oligarchs”, as many players in the banking sector did at the time.

The Financial Times wrote then that, in an effort to avoid “undesirable risks”, the management of the credit institution was looking for potential buyers in China, India or Turkey.

And even earlier, the President of the Russian Federation imposed a ban on transactions with shares of legal entities from “unsympathetic” countries, among which was UniCredit.