Raiffeisen Bank Russia has hired Dina Merkulova as head of financial institutions (FIs), effective immediately.

Merkulova joins the corporate and investment banking (CIB) team and reports to Nikita Patrakhin, a board member and head of Raiffeisen Bank’s CIB directorate.

In the role, she leads a team that provides support to domestic and international banks, as well as non-bank FIs, offering them products they need in their day-to-day activity, including  for trade finance, payments, cash management and acquiring.

Merkulova will continue to be based in Moscow, having joined from Alfa-Bank, where she worked in a number of different roles during a 10-year stint.

Most recently, she had been serving as managing director for trade and export finance, where she was responsible for origination, execution and product development, as well as co-ordination of Alfa-Bank’s relationship with international and domestic banks.

Merkulova took on that role in 2016 after initially serving as director for FIs and export credit agencies at the bank.

Prior to this, she worked as head of trade finance at Nomos bank – which has since become part of Bank Otkritie – for nearly three years.

Speaking to GTR about her new position, Merkulova says that FI is one of CIB’s four business segments, alongside large corporations, mid-sized corporations and multinational corporations.

She adds: “We want to increase the level of support and service for FIs, so we plan to create a new middle office for transaction and capital markets products in this segment.”