Post Bank: The Russian government has given the green light to the creation of a new bank that will operate through the Post Office’s network of 42,000 branches and will have more than twice the number of outlets than Sberbank, currently Russia’s biggest lender.
The new Post Bank will be a joint venture between Russia’s state-run postal service and VTB, the country’s second largest state bank. The announcement of its formation as the state-run Sberbank goes ahead with plans to close hundreds of its unprofitable branches, and is part of a longer-term initiative to privatise the loss-making Russian postal service that has become notorious for month-long delays in delivery delays – most famously the backlog of 500 tons of parcels that piled up in Moscow airports in two years ago. VTB will merge Leto Bank into the new bank which is expected to start work early next year, according to its CEO-elect Dmitry Rudenko.
Russia to launch new Post Bank using post office network
Source: The Moscow Times