VIENNA, April 16. /TASS/. Mass media reports about plans of Raiffeisen Bank International (RBI) to give up the withdrawal from Russia are not true to the fact, the press service of the Austrian bank told TASS.

" The quotes from some job advertisements do not reflect the measures taken by Raiffeisen Bank International to date to reduce its Russian business, nor do they correspond to the further plans for the Russian business," RBI said.

The amount of bank loans in Russia dropped by 56% over the last two years. RBI plans to continue winding down its business in Russia in the financial year of 2024.

"RBI continues to work on a potential transaction, a sale or spin off, which would result in the deconsolidation of Raiffeisenbank Russia from the Group. In order to be able to sell Raiffeisenbank Russia, job positions that are necessary for functioning banking operations will continue to be filled or refilled. We can confirm that headcount and related staff expense increases are related to making Raiffeisenbank Russia autonomous on the IT side, ahead of a potential sale. These increases are not related to business growth," the press service added.

The Financial Times said earlier that RBI had posted dozens of vacancy announcements in Russia, indicative of ambitious plans and contradicting the formal promise of the group to leave the market.