Hungary’s OTP Bank, which has agreed to acquire Baltic banking group Luminor, says it has been unable to find a legally, morally and economically acceptable way to exit Russia, where it continues to serve about 2 million customers more than four years after Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
OTP announced Monday that it had signed an agreement to acquire Luminor, the Baltic region’s third-largest banking group, from a consortium of private equity funds managed by Blackstone and Norway’s DNB Bank. The transaction remains subject to regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions.
The Budapest-based lender operates in 11 countries, including Russia through its subsidiary JSC OTP Bank. According to the bank, it has about 2 million active customers in Russia, where it holds a roughly 0.3% share of the banking market and operates at about 800 locations.
Responding to questions from LRT, OTP said it had explored ways to leave the Russian market after the war began but concluded that no viable solution existed.
“As with other Western banks, we have not been able to find a solution that is simultaneously legally, morally and economically acceptable,” the bank said in a statement.
