- Russia's largest private bank is expanding in China, Bloomberg reported.
- Alfa Bank PJSC is applying to build new offices in Beijing and Shanghai, it said.
- The move comes amid Russia's and China's increasingly intertwined "no limits" trade partnership.
Russia's largest private lender, Alfa Bank PJSC, is planning to expand its business in China.
Alfa Bank, owned by the sanctioned Russian oligarch Mikhail Fridman, is now applying to build offices in China, specifically in Beijing and Shanghai, according to a statement seen this week by Bloomberg.
The bank — which has been under "full blocking" sanctions from the US Treasury since 2022 — has already serviced "thousands" of Chinese firms, and has a website dedicated to Chinese clients, it said in the statement.
The bank also received a AA- rating from a Chinese credit rating firm earlier this year, its first-ever credit rating in the nation, per Bloomberg's report.
Its shift to China is a nod to Russia's increasingly intertwined relationship with the world's second-largest economy, which it has been turning to more as an economic partner after facing Western trade restrictions.
The two nations have embarked on a "no-limits" partnership that took their trade to a record $240 billion last year, and both are partnering with other countries to strategically phase out the use of the dollar.
China's economic partnership has been a lifeline to Russia, which has been hit with a barrage of US and European sanctions since beginning its invasion of Ukraine. Moscow has grown increasingly isolated from global markets, with Beijing being one of the nation's last remaining trading partners.
China, though, has made some moves to distance itself from Russia, as it also risks being sanctioned by the West. China's state-run banks said they would restrict lending to Russian clients in late 2023, around the time the US said it would impose secondary restrictions on lenders that help Russia's trade in sanctioned goods.