Foreign Bank Branches
A foreign bank is entitled to establish only one branch to operate in the Russian Federation, subject to a banking licence issued by the Bank of Russia and accreditation of the branch.
To that end, a foreign bank shall send a licence application and the documents stipulated by Article 18.2 of Federal Law No.
Before making a decision on granting a licence to a branch and its accreditation, the Bank of Russia may conduct an on-site inspection of the branch at its location specified in the application to verify its compliance with the requirements applicable to its operations.
The Bank of Russia shall make a decision regarding the licensing and accreditation of a branch within 60 business days following the date of submission of all required documents.
State fee for accreditation of a foreign bank branch:
₽4,000 — for banks from the EAEU member states,
₽120,000 — for banks from other countries.
In case a foreign bank submits an incomplete package of documents, consideration of an application may be suspended, but for no more than 30 days.
A foreign bank branch shall be deemed accredited from the date of entering its data into the Bank of Russia’s register.
From that moment, a foreign bank branch is allowed to open and maintain bank accounts of legal entities, conduct money transfers as ordered by legal entities and perform a number of other banking operations.
- A foreign bank must be authorised to conduct banking operations and actually conduct them for at least three years, and it must be authorised to conduct foreign currency transactions.
- The regulator of the country where a foreign bank is located must agree to the opening of a branch in the Russian Federation (if obtaining its consent is provided for by the legislation of this country).
- Financial stability and solvency must be confirmed by a foreign regulator.
- A foreign bank must have a credit rating no lower than the level to be established by the Bank of Russia Board of Directors.
- A foreign bank’s sole executive body (SEB), persons holding more than 10% of its shares (stakes), persons controlling such shareholders (members), and the SEBs of such persons must comply with the requirements of both the foreign state concerned and Russian laws (absence of disqualification and pending or unserved sentences, absence from the list of persons involved in extremist activities and terrorism).
- A foreign bank must disclose information to the Bank of Russia regarding persons who control or have significant influence over it according to the procedure similar to the one established for disclosure of such information by Russian credit institutions.
- The name of a foreign bank branch is subject to approval by the Bank of Russia.
- It must have an official website in Russian with the Russian country code domain.
- Its premises must be located at only one address. It may not be located at the addresses of embassies (consulates) and representative offices of foreign states.
- Software and hardware for information processing must be located in the Russian Federation.
- Foreign citizens and stateless persons shall account for no more than 50% of the total headcount.
- Accounting records must be maintained in accordance with the accounting requirements established by the Bank of Russia for credit institutions.
- Record-keeping must be in Russian.
- A foreign bank branch’s head, deputy head, chief accountant, head of risk management, head of internal control, and AML/CFT/CFP compliance officer must meet the qualification and business reputation requirements.
- A foreign bank branch’s head, deputy head, and chief accountant are subject to prior approval by the Bank of Russia.
Contact us for questions and advice:
E-mail: PetrovAY@cbr.ru