Bank of Cyprus gets green light to buy Russian bank

NICOSIA, Oct. 3 (Xinhua) -- Bank of Cyprus, the leading Cypriot commercial bank, has gained approvals from regulatory authorities in Cyprus and Russia to acquire 80 percent of Russia's Uniastrum Bank.

According to a statement released on Friday, the acquisition is expected to be completed by the end of October.

Bank of Cyprus announced in June that it had entered into an agreement for the acquisition of an 80 percent interest in Uniastrum Bank, which has the ninth largest banking network in Russia, for a total consideration of 576 million US dollars.

Through the acquisition, Bank of Cyprus hopes that it can capture the Russian retail banking potential with Uniastrum's 222 branches in Russia. ¡¡