The story
Founded by Central Bank of Russia on Mar 22, 1991, in Moscow.1
History
In its corporate identity, advertising, and presentations, Sberbank actively promotes the idea that it is the successor to the Russian imperial savings banks established by Emperor Nicholas I on 30 October 1841, when he signed a decree establishing savings banks in Russia "to provide … the means for saving in a reliable and profitable manner". Since the early 2000s, Sberbank's advertising materials have referred to 12 November as the bank's birthday, a date resulting from a miscalculation when converting from the Julian calendar. The bank also considers Nikolay Kristofari to be its first customer and the holder of the first savings book (his statue stands outside Sberbank's head offices in Moscow and St Petersburg).
There is, however, no legal continuity between the savings banks of the Russian Empire, the State Labour Savings Banks (the USSR Savings Bank), and Sberbank of Russia. After the 1917 revolution, the savings banks were abolished and then re‑established on the territory of the Russian SFSR by a decree of the Council of People's Commissars in December 1922 as new institutions (not as successors to the pre‑revolutionary savings banks). At the end of 1925, they were transformed into the State Labour Savings Banks of the USSR. In 1987, the State Labour Savings Banks were reorganised into the USSR Savings Bank.
On 13 July 1990, the Russian Republican Bank of the USSR Savings Bank was transformed into the Savings Bank of the Russian SFSR (by a decree of the Supreme Soviet of the Russian SFSR of 13 July 1990 "On the State Bank of the Russian SFSR and Banks on the Territory of the Republic"), declared the property of the Russian SFSR, and placed under the supervision of the Central Bank of the Russian SFSR.
In accordance with an order of the Central Bank of the Russian SFSR of 21 March 1991, the Savings Bank of the Russian SFSR was transformed into the Joint‑Stock Commercial Savings Bank of the Russian Federation (Sberbank of Russia, JSC), and on 22 March 1991 a founding meeting of shareholders of this new bank took place. On 20 June 1991, the Central Bank of the Russian SFSR (the future Central Bank of Russia) registered Sberbank of Russia under licence number 1481.
The USSR Savings Bank continued to exist in parallel and was not liquidated until 1 January 1992. Only after its liquidation did Articles 2 and 3 of the Agreement "On the Principles and Mechanism for Servicing the Internal Debt of the Former USSR" of 13 March 1992 establish that obligations for repaying the former USSR's public debt to the population were to be divided on a territorial basis and assumed by the governments of the respective CIS countries from their state budgets. The obligations on deposits opened in the Savings Banks of the USSR and the Russian SFSR (before 20 June 1991) are not a debt of Sberbank of Russia; they have been recognised as domestic public debt (Federal Law No. 73‑FZ of 10 May 1995 "On the Restoration and Protection of the Savings of Citizens of the Russian Federation") and are subject to compensation from the federal budget of the Russian Federation.
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 (Sberbank of Russia).
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 has been led by former economy minister Herman Gref, a close associate of Vladimir Putin.
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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, the 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 (Ukraine), which was a wholly owned subsidiary of Sberbank, changed its name to VS Bank (Ukrainian: ВіЕс Банк).
2012 DenizBank acquisition
In June 2012, Sberbank bought the Turkish DenizBank for Turkish lira 6,469 billion (about €2,821 billion or US$3.504 billion) from the lender Dexia, which in 2011 was "partly nationalised 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 the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) by adding Sberbank and other entities to the Sectoral Sanctions Identifications (SSI) List. This was done in concert with the addition of Sberbank to the European Union sanctions list on 31 July 2014. The sanctions consist of restrictions on access to EU and US capital markets. After the announcement of the sanctions and by the end of July, Sberbank's market value had dropped more than that of any other major global lender, and investors had moved $22 billion from Sberbank's market capitalisation. Nevertheless, 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 (Hummingbird), formerly Blitz (Ukrainian: «Колибри» стара назва – «Блиц»).
On 15 March 2017, the president of Ukraine imposed sanctions on Sberbank (and other Russian state‑owned banks operating in Ukraine: VTB Bank, BM Bank, Prominvestbank, and VS Bank (Ukrainian: ВіЕс Банк)) as part of its continued sanctions on Russia for its annexation of Crimea and its involvement in the war in Donbas.
2016–2021
Credit cards – both issuer and payment
As of May 2016, Sberbank dominated the Russian card payments market with a market share of over 61%. Sberbank's competitors in the card business were VTB Bank, Alfa-Bank, Tinkoff Bank, and Gazprombank, which together held only 29% of the card business market.
In November 2016, Samsung Electronics announced a new partnership with Sberbank, allowing Sberbank customers to register their Mastercard credit and debit cards with Samsung Pay. This brought the number of banks whose cards were available on Samsung Pay in Russia to seven. However, this compatibility effectively ceased when Mastercard ceased operations in Russia in March 2022.
2017 sale of VS Bank to Tihipko
In December 2017, due to sanctions, Sberbank sold its Ukrainian subsidiary, VS Bank (Ukrainian: ВіЕс Банк), to Ukrainian businessman Serhiy Tihipko.
In 2019, Sberbank began offering electronic cheques to corporate clients to replace chequebooks. According to its calculations, after the service's introduction, the number of paper chequebooks issued by the bank decreased by 30%.
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. Subsequently, 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 faced potential 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 Russia, and all Visa cards issued outside Russia no longer worked within Russia.
In April 2022, Apple and Google removed Sberbank's mobile apps from their stores. The Android application could 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 the App Store. Deputy Chairman of the Board of Sberbank Stanislav Kuznetsov, speaking at the Eastern Economic Forum, warned about new applications being distributed under Sberbank's name. According to him, all new applications on the AppStore claiming to be from Sberbank had nothing to do with the bank. Kuznetsov noted that these were tools for fraudsters to gain remote access to a smartphone in order 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 roubles (approximately $333 million). The hearing was scheduled for November 2024.
In July 2024, Sberbank began paying "record" dividends for 2023. One share was worth 33.3 roubles, and the total amount was 752 billion roubles ($8.5 billion). Half of this was allocated to the state, and the other half was 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 roubles (over $300 million) for 2023. This amount was distributed among approximately 650 employees.
2025–2026
In February 2025, Sberbank planned to collaborate with Chinese researchers on AI projects, following the development of DeepSeek's cost‑effective AI model. The bank aimed to engage in joint research initiatives with China, involving its own scientists.
In July 2026, Sberbank announced it would stop servicing foreign-currency and multicurrency Visa and Mastercard bank cards starting 1 September 2026. Sberbank's foreign-currency/multicurrency cards had previously ceased working for hotel bookings or purchases outside of Russia in 2022, after international sanctions were issued following the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Rebranding and "ecosystem" (2020–present)
In 2020, Sberbank undertook a rebranding. In addition to changing the logo and formally adopting the shortened name 'Sber', the company announced its transformation into an 'ecosystem'. Sberbank decided to become "more than a bank" and began to develop various services, primarily digital: online cinema (Okko), music (SberSound), food delivery (SberMarket), cloud storage (SberDisk), and taxis (Citymobil).
Initially, the 'ecosystem' was built in partnership with the large internet holding company Mail.ru Group, for which a joint venture, O2O (online‑to‑offline) Holding, was created with a capital of approximately 100 billion roubles. However, in the spring of 2021, the parties decided to end their cooperation because of disagreements over management methods and corporate culture.
Another component of the 'ecosystem' is pharmacies. Having launched an online service, Sber Eapteka (e‑drugstore), Sber soon decided to expand the business and open pharmacies in its own branches. It is assumed that purchases there will be more profitable because of 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 sabbatical leave. Employees are permitted to take unpaid leave of up to one year – with the retention of their jobs (although this requires the consent of their immediate supervisor). 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' under Russian law – first published online by the journalist Aleksandr Plyushchev – was accurate.
From Wikipedia’s article on Sberbank, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.7