Julian, What will they do, can I ask you? Russian law prohibits western banks to establish direct branches here. Citibank here is incorporated as ZAO KB Citibank, it is purely a Russian company, with its own balance sheet, P&L etc. What you see is just the brand name that you know, but what's behind it is completely different from the west.
If Russia gets into a new financial crisis, Citibank in the US will assume no obligations of ZAO KB Citibank in Russia if this Russian bank also experiences financial difficulties. Same for Raiffeisen, it is also another ZAO. For me, roots of the problem lie not in the poor supervision from the US management, they are in the poor state of the service sector in Russia, the fact that its economy depends only on exports of oil and gas, that there are numerous stupid regulations which make the conduct of private business very difficult, widespread corruption, deteriorated educational system, nepotism which makes young people believe that working hard is useless because you will not achieve anything, etc. Of course there are positive sides like high oil prices, increasing stabilisation fund, hard currency reserves, single party of power, etc but all these benefits are not for you, Julian, not for myself, not for many other people living in this country. Nobody will hear your voice. Because there are so many people who will continue to use Citibank/RZB/other banks just because they accept such service is normal. All the best Vladimir Wednesday, February 20, 2008, 8:57:38 AM, you wrote: > People, Don't just accept this! You all have access to the Internet! > I just cut and pasted the last big email about citi bank and sent it to > the board of directors in America. ( I removed email addresses) > You have a voice, use it! > I > Julian Beirne > Moscow _______________________________________________ Expat mailing list [email protected] http://www.lists.ru/mailman/listinfo/expat http://www.expat.ru/forum/
