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Bank of Moscow opens doors Wednesday 3 June 2009 | 10:13 | Source: B92 BELGRADE -- The Bank of Moscow Belgrade is opening its first branch in Serbia today, thus becoming the 35th foreign-owned bank in the country. The Bank of Moscow is one of the three biggest and most stable banks in Russia and its main shareholder, with a 44 percent stake, is the city of Moscow, Milan Ćulibrk from €konomist magazine explains. “What’s characteristic here is that thus far, it has operated literally exclusively with legal entities, with industry. It was expected that the Bank of Moscow’s arrival in Serbia would be directly linked to Gazprom’s purchase of NIS, but it’s turned out that that transaction was not conducted through the Bank of Moscow,” he notes. “So, it will now try to carve out a place for itself on the market, working primarily with companies who trade with Russia, and thus grab as big a slice of the cake for itself as possible,” Ćulibrk said. The bank began operating in Serbia last year as the first Russian bank in the region, and the first Greenfield investment in the Serbian banking sector in the last seven years.
