There are currently 21 banks operating in Serbia. This number will soon become smaller as AIK Banka has announced the acquisition of Eurobank Direktna Banka, with which it has already signed a sales agreement, and Raiffeisenbank is also expected to complete the acquisition of the former Credit Agricole Bank, which has been operating under the name RBA Bank Novi since the beginning of September 2022.
If there are no new mergers and acquisitions of banks in the pipeline, this would mean that there will soon be a total of 19 banks left on the market. Banking groups from Greece, France and Russia no longer have any subsidiary banks in Serbia. The mother banks of local banks that operate in Serbia as separate legal entities are from Slovenia, Italy, Austria, Germany, Hungary, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, China, the Czech Republic, and for some time – Greece. Two foreign citizens who are the owners of two local banks are registered in the Serbian Business Register (APR) as citizens of Russia and Grenada.
When AIK Bank takes over Eurobank Direktna Banka, there will no longer be any Greek-owned banks on the Serbian market. In recent years, banks from France – Société Générale and Credit Agricole – have also left the Serbian banking market. Also, there are no more banks owned by banking groups from the Russian Federation – Sberbank was also bought by AIK Bank in 2022.
Several banks are owned by Serbian businessmen – Miodrag Kostić, President of MK Commerce Group, is the owner of AIK Bank and Davor Macura, the owner of nine companies, also owns Alta Bank (the former Jumbes Bank).
The owner of API Bank (the former Moscow Bank and then VTB Bank) is a foreign citizen Andrey Zakharovich Shlyakhovoy. More precisely, he is the founder of the company AZRS Invest d.o.o. Belgrade, which is the 100% owner of API Bank. Shlyakhovoy used his Russian passport to register the company, but in May last year, he changed the registration application to state that he is a citizen of Grenada.
Another bank – Expobank (formerly Marfin Bank) – is owned by several individuals including Igor Kim from the Russian Federation, who has a 72.25 percent share and German Tsoy, who has a 17.86 percent share. The rest are small shareholders.
(N1, 15.03.2023)
https://n1info.rs/biznis/cije-su-nase-banke-od-kine-do-grenade/
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