Raiffeisen Bank International

Stock performance

History

RBI's roots go back to 1927, when Austria's cooperative Raiffeisen banks, inspired by the 19th-century German rural credit pioneer Friedrich Wilhelm Raiffeisen, set up a central institution in Vienna that later became Raiffeisen Zentralbank Österreich. From the late 1980s it built one of the largest banking networks in Central and Eastern Europe, and RBI took its current form in 2010 when RZB's main businesses were merged with its listed eastern subsidiary, Raiffeisen International.

Business model

RBI provides corporate, retail, and investment banking in Austria and across Central and Eastern Europe, including Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, Croatia, Serbia, and Ukraine. Its most controversial unit is its large Russian subsidiary, which remained highly profitable after 2022; under pressure from the European Central Bank and US authorities, RBI has been shrinking that business and trying to find a way to exit it.

Market position

RBI is one of the largest lenders in Central and Eastern Europe and, together with Erste Group, one of the two pillars of Austria's international banking presence. Its share price has traded at a steep discount to peers since 2022 because of the uncertainty around its Russian operations and related legal risks.

Country impact

RBI sits at the top of the Raiffeisen banking group, Austria's largest banking network by number of branches, with deep roots in rural and agricultural communities through its regional and local cooperative banks. Its dilemma over Russia has made it a high-profile test case for how Western European banks handle exposure to sanctioned economies.