Raiffeisen Bank International (RBI) is committed to its Russian business and has played down potential problems in Ukraine that have cast a shadow over the number two lender in central and eastern Europe.

However it is so concerned about the crisis in Ukraine that it says previous targets for lending and risk-provisioning now depend on how those events play out.

"I don't want to sugarcoat the situation. Of course there are risks for [Ukrainian unit] Aval and RBI, which is why we qualified the outlook for 2014," chief executive Karl Sevelda told the Austrian group's annual results news conference.

Raiffeisen's business in Russia, which includes investment banking, capital markets and retail, accounted for most of its profits last year, bringing in a pre-tax return on equity of nearly 32 per cent.

“If Raiffeisen remains committed to these countries, it will be affected by higher credit and funding risk and negative foreign currency translation,” Berenberg Bank analyst Eleni Papoula wrote in a research note.

Every 10 per cent drop in the Russian rouble would undermine estimates for 2015 pre-tax profit by about 4 per cent, while risk from the Ukrainian hryvnia was much lower, she added.

The bank said it swung to a fourth-quarter group net profit of €146 million, beating market estimates. – (Reuters)