Post Bank: The Russian government has approved the establishment of a massive new bank that will eventually have more retail branches than all other Russian banks combined. Based on the country’s postal service, the Post Bank is being established through a joint venture between Russian Post and the state-owned VTB Bank that will fold its Leto Bank subsidiary into the new venture. Set up to provide banking services – especially to pensioners – across Russia’s remoter and under-populated regions, Post Bank could start giving out loans as early as January 2016, with a pilot project to be launched in Moscow this autumn.
Over the next three years, the bank will open outlets in at least 15,000 Russian Post offices and should eventually operate in all of its 42,000 branches – more the twice the number currently operated by the country’s largest retail banker Sberbank.
VTB is to keep 50% plus 1 share of the new entity and will invest $246m in the new venture, with Russian Post acquiring the rest and underwriting the the cost for modernising its post office branches to accommodate the banking operations.
New Post Bank to serve Russian regions with 40,000 branches
Source: rbth