The headquarters of the biggest Russian bank Sberbank in Moscow, Russia, 03 June 2009. Nizhny Novgorod-based Oleg Deripaska’s GAZ Group, Sberbank and Canadian autoparts maker Magna intend to purchase controlling stake in General Motors’ Opel division, newspaper Delovoy Kvartal reports. For the Russian banking sector, these are the most nervous times since the global financial crisis six years ago. Half a dozen of the biggest state-connected banks – accounting for more than half of Russian banking assets – have in effect been cut off from western financing by EU and US sanctions imposed over Moscow’s aggression in Ukraine. The sliding rouble , meanwhile, creates at least the possibility that Russian consumers could start pulling their savings out of deposit accounts and swapping them into dollars. Those factors plus falling oil prices , which reduce Russia’s dollar receipts for oil exports, are creating […]