Sberbank claims a natural monopoly of habit

State-owned Sberbank, the former People’s Savings Bank, accounts for a quarter of Russia’s bank assets and half of deposits. Along with other banks in which the state has a stake, it is beginning to dominate the sector. Ben Aris spoke to Andrei Kazmin, the chairman of Sberbank’s board, who claims that the state connection does not give his bank an unfair advantage

Sberbank has been growing strongly. How are you going to maintain your recent growth? We are a universal bank, and we achieved this in 2000. In 1996 corporate clients represented 5% to 6% of all our liabilities. Now it is about 30%. It is a hard job to increase it further, but we want to try. The competition in the corporate banking sector is the most fierce. We published our new concept, accepted by shareholders in June.

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