The Russian government has approved the acquisition of the Postal Bank by the country’s second-largest lender state-controlled VTB Bank, the head of VTB Andrey Kostin told Rossiya 24 TV channel. As followed by bne IntelliNews, this month VTB said it plans to acquire the Postal Bank, formerly run by the Russian Post (Pochta Rossii). VTB and the Russian Post entered into an agreement on parity ownership of the Postal Bank, which is under full blocking US sanctions since November 2023. The bank has 8.6mn active customers and could boost VTB’s customer base to almost 28mn people (VTB’s strategy is…