Russian branch of EU bank posts $172 million profit  

The Russian subsidiary of the Hungarian OTP Bank will pay nearly $31 million in dividends to its parent company, the bank’s filing published on Tuesday revealed.

According to the document, OTP Bank Russia will pay interim dividends worth 2.8 billion rubles ($30.9 million) for January-September 2023 to its Hungary-based parent company under special permission issued by the Central Bank of Russia.

In October, the bank’s shareholders decided to pay dividends in the amount of 10.6 billion rubles ($117 million) from profits for the first half of the year and part of retained earnings from previous years.

OTP Bank Russia posted a net profit of 15.6 billion rubles ($172.2 million) in the first nine months of the year, according to Russian Accounting Standards (RAS).

In May, the Ukrainian National Corruption Prevention Agency designated OTP as an “international sponsor of war” due to the preferential lending terms the bank was allegedly providing to the Russian military.

Ukraine kept OTP Bank on the blacklist between May and early October, when it agreed to reverse the designation amid criticism by some EU countries.

OTP, which is Central Europe’s largest independent lender, is also one of the 50 biggest banks in Russia. Its Ukrainian division has approximately $507 million in assets.

Russian business accounts for about 3% of the OTP Group’s total assets, according to the lender’s data.

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