Priorbank to refuse fulfill instructions of its Austrian owner?

The EU sanctions against “purses” of Lukashenka put Priorbank into a difficult situation.

Austrian Raiffeisen Bank International owns 87.74% of Priorbank's shares and a decision of the EU should affect not only the parent company, but also its subsidiaries.

As charter97.org has learned from its sources, the mother bank holds a “serious debate”on how to deal with accounts of the blacklisted companies. Many of them have credit lines opened via Raiffeisen Bank and its subsidiaries. A decision to stop accounts service for firms of Belarusian oligarchs should automatically block the possibility of receiving Priorbank's services.

However, the Belarusian bank will hardly decide on this step. Being one of the most influential Belarusian businessmen, Sergey Kostyuchenko, the Chairman of the Board of Priorbank, is close to the dictator.

We remind, the main reason for imposing the EU sanctions was unwillingness of the dictator to free political prisoners, including presidential candidates Andrei Sannikov and Mikalay Statkevich.