Credit Suisse announced it has a gross exposure to Russia of 1.6 billion Swiss francs ($1.73 billion) at the end of 2021, the latest European bank to reveal the size of potential losses from Western sanctions excluding Moscow from the system. world financial.
Italy’s UniCredit and France’s BNP Paribas also disclosed billions of euros at risk from Russia. In an extreme scenario, banks could lose everything if Moscow seizes assets and sanctions render Russia-related stocks worthless.
From Germany, Deutsche Bank mentioned that its exposure to credit risk to Russia and Ukraine is 2.9 billion euros, thus further reducing its risk to Russia in the last two weeks.
Banks, insurers and asset managers, who rarely make political statements, are rushing to distance themselves from Russia and assess their exposures as the conflict enters its third week.
While the potential losses among major European lenders are not big enough to threaten their stability, analysts and investors fear they could derail their recovery plans and stop shareholder payouts.
Credit Suisse first detailed its net credit exposure to Russia late last year, which included loans to wealthy clients, as well as exposure to trade finance and investment banking.
Meanwhile, BNP Paribas has isolated its Russian workforce from its internal IT systems as it seeks to bolster its defenses against any potential hacker attacks, in another sign of how the conflict is affecting Western financial institutions.