Russia's VTB Bank reportedly set to exit Europe

[MOSCOW] Russia's VTB Bank is preparing to wind down its European operations after being hit hard by sanctions, the Financial Times reported, citing people with knowledge of the internal discussions. VTB declined to comment to the newspaper.

"We're trying to do it as swiftly as we can - but operations in Europe are much more complicated than those in the UK," FT reported a person involved in the planning as saying. "We're doing everything we can to get customers' money back to them."

Sberbank, Russia's biggest lender, decided to exit the European market last week. Together, Sberbank and VTB account for more than half of Russia's banking market. BLOOMBERG