It is not surprising that Raiffeisen Bank Aval was chosen as the best bank by this year’s Best of Kyiv reader’s poll. The bank has been an undisputed trend-setter on Ukraine’s small but dymanic banking market for more than one decade now.
In the fall of 2005, Austria’s leading banking group, Raiffeisen, purchased Aval from a handful of Ukrainian owners triggering off a flurry of sales which saw many top Ukrainian banks sell to European financial institutions. Raiffeisen paid what was then considered a whopping $1 billion for Aval, which has since been renamed to Raiffeisen Bank Aval.
Having stepped in early, Raiffeisen certainly got its money’s worth. It acquired one of the top five banks in an emerging market of 46 million citizens who are just getting used to banking services.
But Raiffeisen and other European banks that marched into the market following in the Austrian group’s footsteps brought much to Ukraine in return. They invested billions of dollars into the country’s banking market and introduced new standards for banking that fuelled a credit boom. It has temporarily been halted by the global credit crunch, but not before generating years of strong growth for Ukraine.
Throughout the dark days of the global financial crisis and thereafter, Raiffeisen will no doubt continue in this endeavor offering quality service to customers in Ukraine and throughout the region.
Raiffeisen Bank Aval (9 Leskova St., 490-8888).
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