Alexei Kudrin said shareholders of the International Bank for Economic Cooperation (IBEC) and the International Investment Bank (MI-Bank) were in talks on a merger. The banks' shareholders are governments, particularly in former communist-bloc countries.
"We are discussing a possible merger of the banks," said the minister, who is in Singapore for a meeting held by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
Kudrin said IBEC, established in 1963 to encourage economic cooperation and trade in the communist bloc, and MI-Bank, where Russia holds the largest single stake with 44% of the shares, needed restructuring because their assets were too small by international standards and they were inefficient.
He said the charter capital of the new bank could be increased in the future, but added the issue was not currently under consideration.
Member states of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance, an economic organization of Soviet-bloc countries, set up MI-Bank in 1969 to implement investment projects.
