The new head of Svyaz Bank, Alla Aleshkina, will deepen the integration of the financial institution with Russian Post. As a result, the bank could become a market leader and, perhaps, overtake the hitherto unshakable monster - Sberbank
Svyaz Bank’s Board of Directors has decided to appoint the acting CEO Alla Aleshkina (the former first deputy chairman at Sberbank).
Experts agree that the Svyaz Bank will soon achieve the success of Sberbank, as Aleshkin’s main objective will be deepening the bank’s integration with Russian Post, which recently appointed the former head of Sberbank and, according to some reports, Aleshkina’s partner, Andrey Kazmin.
Formally, Svyaz Bank and Russian Post are not connected. Russian Post is a federal state unitary enterprise (FSUE); Svyaz Bank has a multitude of private shareholders. But, in reality, Svyaz Bank began as an industrial bank and has always worked closely with Russian Post.
In recent years, Svyaz Bank has developed extremely rapidly. “In April 2004, we started with assets of 3 billion rubles (184th place in a ranking of credit institutions). As of 1 January 2008, the bank’s assets exceeded 155 billion rubles, and Svyaz Bank entered the list of the twenty largest Russian banks. During that time, the bank’s capital increased nearly 80 times: from 197 million rubles to 15.6 billion rubles, and the bank moved in ranking from 453rd place to 26th,” said a statement by the former head of the bank, Gennady Meshcheryakov.
The bank previously specialized in serving corporate clients, today we offer individuals a full range of banking services, from deposit accounts to mortgages, Vladimir Kochurin, a Svyaz Bank representative, told Expert Online.
Svyaz Bank’s cooperation with Russian Post contributed to its retail progress. In July 2006, Svyaz Bank and Russian Post opened a postal service branch in Moscow with an additional office of the bank located inside. Now, at more than 10,000 postal branches it is possible to withdraw cash through Svyaz Bank ATMs. Last year, a Svyaz Bank mini-office program began in Russian Post branches. At the beginning of this year, Russian Post transferred to Svyaz Bank 75 of the 81 branches. Svyaz Bank provides more than 98% of Russian Post’s accounts, the aggregate transactions of which exceed 110 billion roubles a month. Add to that, postal service employees receive their salaries through the bank, and that is 250,000 people.
Aleshkina’s appointment shows that the bank will work closely with Andrey Kazmin’s company. This means that in terms of the volume of business the bank may become one of the market leaders in the near future. It will have access to 40,000 Russian Post branches. Sberbank now has around 20,000 offices.
Of course, to establish business in all 40,000 branches will require large investment. As part of the development of Russian Post 50 billion rubles of budget money (from the total 200 billion rubles requested to modernize the postal system) may be allocated to the banking project, says Olga Belen`kaya, deputy director of the Sovlink analytical department.
The general director of Interfax-TSEA, Mikhail Matovnikov, also expects a large bank to emerge in the future with the integration with Russian Post. “In all countries postal banks are very far-reaching in terms of the volume of business. Their main business is payments, transfers, deposits, and the remaining range of banking services,” says Matovnikov.
So, the emergence of a new domestic retail giant is not far off.
Yekaterina Shokhina
Photo: ITAR-TASS
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