Sberbank
The Public JSC Sberbank is a Russian majority state-owned banking and financial services company headquartered in Moscow. As the Russian successor entity of the State Labor Savings Banks System of the USSR, it was called Sberbank of Russia until 2015, and in 2020 further shortened its brand to Sber. Following the termination of its operations in the European Union in the immediate aftermath of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, its international footprint is primarily in the Commonwealth of Independent States.
By 2022, the bank accounted for about a third of all bank assets in Russia. The bank's rise since 1990s is in part due to its close connections to the Russian government. Sberbank has 86 branches and one representative office in 79 regions of Russia and one foreign country. it was the largest bank in Russia and Eastern Europe, and the third largest in Europe, ranked 60th in the world and first in Central and Eastern Europe in The Bankers Top 1000 World Banks ranking. In the world ranking of public companies Forbes "Global 2000" Sberbank takes 51st place.
History
1991–2013
In 1991, the operations of the State Labor Savings Banks System of the USSR in the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic were reorganised into the Joint-Stock Commercial Savings Bank of the Russian Federation.In post-Soviet Russia, Sberbank is the largest universal bank despite growing competition from private and other state-owned commercial banks. The bank has gradually expanded its international presence.
Since 2007, Sberbank is led by former economy minister Herman Gref who is a very close friend of Vladimir Putin.
; 2011 Volksbank International acquisition
In 2011, Sberbank acquired Volksbank International AG from its shareholders Österreichische Volksbanken AG, BPCE, DZ Bank, and WGZ Bank. The deal included all Volksbank assets – banks in Slovakia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovenia, Croatia, Ukraine, Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, except for Volksbank Romania. The agreed price was between €585 million and €645 million, depending on Volksbank's business performance in 2011. Volksbank's total assets, excluding Romania, were €9.4 billion as of June 2011. On 16 December 2013, Volksbank, which was a wholly owned subsidiary of Sberbank, changed its name to .
; 2012 Denizbank acquisition
In June 2012 Sberbank bought the Turkish DenizBank for Turkish lira 6,469 billion from the lender Dexia, which in 2011 was "partly nationalized by the governments of France, Belgium and Luxembourg". The deal included DenizBank subsidiaries in Turkey, Austria and Russia.
2014–2017 sanctions
After the annexation of the Crimean Peninsula by Russia in 2014, the Obama administration imposed targeted sanctions on 12 September 2014, through the US Department of Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control by adding Sberbank and other entities to the Sectoral Sanctions Identifications List. This was done in concert with 31 July 2014 addition of Sberbank to the European Union sanctions list. Sanctions consist of access restriction to the EU and US capital markets. After announcement of the sanctions, and by the end of July, Sberbank's market value had dropped the most market value among the world's major lenders plus investors moved $22 billion from Sberbank's market capitalization. Still, during the following year, Sberbank's share price grew back 89%. Sberbank, together with other Russian banks, filed claims with the highest EU court to lift the punitive economic measures.On 27 August 2014, Switzerland imposed sanctions on Sberbank and other Russian financial institutions.
On 22 December 2015, the United States imposed additional sanctions on Sberbank and its subsidiaries.
On 17 October 2016, Ukraine imposed sanctions against Sberbank Russia, Sberbank Leasing, and their payment systems Kolibri, formerly Blitz.
On 15 March 2017, the president of Ukraine imposed sanctions on Sberbank ) as part of its continued sanctions on Russia for its annexation of Crimea and involvement in the war in Donbas.
2016–2021
; Credit cards – both issuer and paymentAs of May 2016, Sberbank dominated the Russian card payments market with a market share of over 61%. Sberbank's competitors in the card business are VTB Bank, Alfa-Bank, Tinkoff Bank, and Gazprombank, which combined only had a 29% of the card business market.
; 2017 sale of VS Bank to Tihipko
In December 2017, due to sanctions, Sberbank sold its Ukrainian subsidiary, VS Bank to Ukrainian businessman Serhiy Tihipko.
2022–2023 sanctions
On 24 February 2022, as a result of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, US president Joe Biden announced sanctions against additional Russian individuals and companies, including new restrictions on Sberbank's operations, after which Sberbank's stock lost more than half of its value.On 25 February 2022, the banking licence of Sberbank in Ukraine was revoked.
On 28 February 2022, Sberbank Europe was facing bankruptcy as a consequence of the sanctions. Deutsche Börse suspended trading in Sberbank stock. Two days later, Sberbank Europe declared that it was leaving the European market.
Visa and Mastercard suspended their activities in Russia at the beginning of March 2022. Cards of these systems issued by Russian banks no longer worked outside of Russia, and all Visa cards issued outside of Russia no longer work within Russia.
In April 2022, Apple and Google removed Sberbank mobile apps from their stores. The Android application can be downloaded from the bank's website, but iPhone users did not have this option. In August, the SBOL application appeared in the App Store. It does not formally belong to Sber, but it fully reproduces the functionality of the removed application. A week later, this app was also removed from App Store. Deputy Chairman of the Board of Sberbank Stanislav Kuznetsov, speaking at the Eastern Economic Forum, spoke about new applications allegedly distributed on behalf of Sberbank. According to him, all new applications on the AppStore hosted by Sberbank have nothing in common with it. Kuznetsov noted that these are programs for fraudsters to remotely access a smartphone to steal passwords and bank card numbers.
In July 2022, the EU imposed sanctions on Sberbank in relation to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. Sberbank was also sanctioned by New Zealand in 2022.
During 2022 and 2023, many overseas subsidiaries lost their licences, closed, were sold, or went into receivership.
2024
In July 2024, Russian FIT LLC, the developer of the PayQR contactless payment service, filed a lawsuit against Sberbank in the Moscow Arbitration Court. The plaintiff alleges that Sberbank has violated its exclusive rights to the PayQR design elements. Sberbank uses its own SberPay QR service. The amount of the claim is 2.9 billion rubles. The hearing is scheduled for November 2024.In July 2024, Sberbank began paying "record" dividends for 2023. One share is worth 33.3 rubles, and the total amount will be 752 billion rubles. Half of it will be allocated to the state, and the other half will be distributed among the 1.8 million private shareholders.
On 16 August, Sberbank disclosed for the first time in three years the amount spent on remuneration of top management and key executives. In total, they were paid 28 billion rubles for 2023. This amount is distributed among approximately 650 employees.
2025
In February 2025, Sberbank planned a collaboration with Chinese researchers on AI projects following the development of DeepSeek's cost-effective AI model. The bank aims for joint research initiatives with China, involving their own scientists.Rebranding 2020 and "ecosystem"
In 2020, Sberbank undertook a rebranding. In addition to changing the logo and legalizing the reduction of "Sber", the company announced the transformation of the bank into an "ecosystem". Sberbank decided to become "more than a bank" and began to develop various services, mainly digital: online cinema, music, food delivery, cloud storage, taxi.Initially, the "ecosystem" was built in partnership with the large Internet holding company Mail.ru Group, for which a joint venture, O2O Holding, was created with a capital of approximately 100 billion rubles. However, in the spring of 2021, the parties decided to end cooperation due to disagreements over management methods and corporate culture.
Another component of the "ecosystem" is pharmacies. Having launched an online service, Sber Eapteka, Sber soon decided to expand the business and open pharmacies in its own branches. It is assumed that purchases there will be more profitable due to the targeted packaging of drugs, as well as the production of its own generics.
In 2021, Sber also founded an e-commerce site, SberMegaMarket, as well as SberMarket, a delivery app.
In the summer of 2021, Sberbank announced the implementation of the sabbatical practice. Employees are allowed to take unpaid leave of up to a year—with the retention of their jobs. They are also allowed to work remotely for three months a year.
In 2024, SberMegaMarket confirmed that a list of 250 books banned from the service for promoting "LGBT propaganda" was accurate.
Deposits of USSR citizens in the bank
After price liberalization in the early 1990s, the state and Sberbank effectively abandoned guarantees to secure citizens' deposits, as a result of their depreciation, which, according to sociological surveys, caused a sharp dissatisfaction of the population. Since 1996 there has been a phased compensation of depositors' losses. Since 16 February 2008, Sberbank branches have started to pay compensation on Soviet deposits to certain categories of population.The law on full compensation of deposits, taking into account changes in the real value of the ruble, was adopted in 1995, but since 2003, the start of payments has been regularly postponed. In 2019, a law was enacted to delay the start of payments until 2023. As of 2022, repayment of the entire debt of RUB 345.54 billion in 2023 would require RUB 62.7 trillion. In the fall of 2022, the government sent a bill to the State Duma to move the deadline to early 2026.