RCB Bank (formerly Russian Commercial Bank) was an international bank founded in 1995 and headquartered in

Limassol Limassol, also known as Lemesos, is a city on the southern coast of Cyprus and capital of the Limassol district. Limassol is the second-largest urban area in Cyprus after Nicosia, with an urban population of 195,139 and a district population o ...

, Cyprus.

Background

In 1963, the London branch of the Russian Moscow Narodny Bank established a branch in

Beirut Beirut ( ; ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Lebanon. , Greater Beirut has a population of 2.5 million, just under half of Lebanon's population, which makes it the List of largest cities in the Levant region by populatio ...

for foreign trade and export support from the

USSR The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

Middle East The Middle East (term originally coined in English language) is a geopolitical region encompassing the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant, Turkey, Egypt, Iran, and Iraq. The term came into widespread usage by the United Kingdom and western Eur ...

ern countries. In 1985, during the height of the Libyan–U.S. crisis, the Beirut branch closed and some staff members and documents were transferred to Cyprus, where it received its papers from the

State Bank of the USSR The State Bank of the USSR (), known as the State Bank of the RSFSR from 1921 to 1923, and commonly referred to as Gosbank (), was the central bank and main component of the single-tier banking system of the Soviet Union. It replaced the State Ban ...

in 1989. It was later transferred to the Russian

VTB Bank VTB Bank (; formerly known as ''Vneshtorgbank'', , lit. 'International Trade Bank') is a Russian majority state-owned bank headquartered in various federal districts of Russia; its legal address is registered as St. Petersburg. As of 2022, ...

, becoming a full subsidiary of VTB in August 1995. In 2002, VTB owned the controlling stake in RCB Bank and also had controlling stakes in the

Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...

-based Donau Bank and the

Luxembourg Luxembourg, officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, is a landlocked country in Western Europe. It is bordered by Belgium to the west and north, Germany to the east, and France on the south. Its capital and most populous city, Luxembour ...

-based

East-West United Bank East-West United Bank () is a bank based in Luxembourg, established on 12 June 1974 by the Gosbank, the Soviet Union's central bank. It has been fully owned by Russia-based Sistema since 2018. The bank offered private banking and corporate financ ...

. By 2005, VTB controlled 100% of RCB Bank.Alternate archive
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History

RCB Bank was founded in 1995 under the name Russian Commercial Bank (Cyprus), which changed to simply RCB Bank in November 2013. The bank was based in

, with branches in

Nicosia Nicosia, also known as Lefkosia and Lefkoşa, is the capital and largest city of Cyprus. It is the southeasternmost of all EU member states' capital cities. Nicosia has been continuously inhabited for over 5,500 years and has been the capi ...

and nine other locations across Cyprus. It also had branches in

and representative offices in

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

and

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

. The bank's chairman was Greek-Cypriot banker Christakis Santis, while Russian banker Kirill Zimarin was its CEO. Other board of directors members included English-Cypriot economist Sir Christopher Pissarides, Greek-Cypriot former foreign minister

Erato Kozakou-Marcoullis Erato Kozakou-Marcoullis (; born 3 August 1949) is a Cypriot politician who served as the List of Ministers of Foreign Affairs (Cyprus), Minister of Foreign Affairs of Cyprus from July 2007 to March 2008 and from 5 August 2011 - 27 February 2013, ...

, Greek-Cypriot former attorney general Petros Clerides, Greek-Cypriot former permanent secretary at the ministries of finance and justice Andreas Tryfonides, and Greek-Cypriot former ambassador and permanent secretary at the foreign ministry Sotos Zackheos. In November 2014, RCB Bank was categorized as a significant bank under

European Banking Supervision European Banking Supervision, also known as the Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM), is the policy framework for the prudential supervision of banks in the euro area. It is centered on the European Central Bank (ECB), whose supervisory arm is re ...

. RCB Bank was a partner of the

European Investment Bank The European Investment Bank (EIB) is the European Union's investment bank and is owned by the 27 member states. It is the largest multilateral financial institution in the world. The EIB finances and invests both through equity and debt sol ...

and the

European Investment Fund The European Investment Fund (EIF), established in 1994, is a financial institution for the provision of finance to SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises), headquartered in Luxembourg. It is part of the European Investment Bank Group. It ...

in financing investment projects implemented with the EU funds in Cyprus. In August 2017, Zimarin increased his ownership of RCB to 49.9% by acquiring a 19.85% stake in the Russian Otkritie Financial Corporation Bank. In February 2022, VTB Bank sold its shares in RCB to Cypriot shareholders in the midst of economic effects caused by

Russia's invasion of Ukraine On 24 February 2022, , starting the largest and deadliest war in Europe since World War II, in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, conflict between the two countries which began in 2014. The fighting has caused hundreds of thou ...

, thus making the bank entirely Cypriot-owned for the first time. In line with the voluntary decision of the shareholders of RCB to wind down banking operations, the ECB/CBC approved the withdrawal of the banking license of RCB on 22 December 2022. The bank has ceased to trade.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:RCB Bank Banks under direct supervision of the European Central Bank 1995 establishments in Cyprus Companies based in Limassol Banks established in 1995 Banks of Cyprus

Background

History

See also

References

External links