VIENNA (Reuters) - There are no plans at the moment to alter the three-level structure at Austria's Raiffeisen group to boost its performance but it could do more to consolidate back-office functions, a senior banker told the Wirtschaftsblatt newspaper.
Around 470 local Raiffeisen banks own eight regional landesbanks that in turn own a 90 percent stake in Raiffeisen Zentralbank [RZB.UL}, the unlisted parent of eastern Europe arm Raiffeisen Bank International (VI:RBIV) (RBI).
Heinrich Schaller, the head of Raiffeisenlandesbank Oberoesterreich
Raiffeisen Bank International lost money in 2014 and may again this year, posing a drag on the sector.
But Schaller said no one could have foreseen the Russia-Ukraine crisis and draconian taxes in Hungary that have hit RBI, adding he supported the countermeasures RBI has launched.
"We will not shake up RBI," he told the paper in an interview published on Friday.
What the group could do was unify areas such as payments, treasury processing and legal affairs, he said.