Russia's largest state bank announced that it was entering the Crimean market. Until 2023, the bank, like many other financial institutions and companies, was afraid of Western sanctions and refused to work on the peninsula. Now, when Sberbank is under sanctions, the state-owned bank has decided to enter the Crimean market, as reported by RBC with reference to the company's press service.
“Sberbank has formed a team and is starting to work on the Crimean peninsula,” the state bank reports.
Sberbank promises to open the first offices in Crimea in the first half of the year, and the first ATMs of the state bank in Crimea have already been installed and started working. Full access to all services of the bank for Crimeans will be organized before the end of 2023.
Sberbank comes to Crimea almost 9 years after the annexation of the peninsula by Russia. For a long time, the head of Sberbank, German Gref, explained the impossibility of working in Crimea with the huge risks of sanctions and their consequences for the work of the entire bank. However, after the imposition of sanctions, Gref changed his rhetoric and began to assert that the restrictions "would not have a significant impact on the work of the bank." Nevertheless, Sberbank lost several important foreign assets, primarily in Europe, was disconnected from SWIFT, and also faced an outflow of capital from individuals.
Sberbank and other financial institutions have long been criticized for refusing to work in Crimea because of the risks of sanctions. Many deputies even threatened to initiate proceedings against the state bank because of the discrediting of Crimea, but none of these threats reached the court. The decision of Sberbank will certainly be satisfied with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who in 2022 said that after the sanctions, the state bank had nothing to fear and it was possible to start working on the peninsula.
Until 2022, there was relative tension with banking services on the peninsula, of the large financial organizations in Crimea, only Rossiya, ChBRR, RNKB and Genbank worked.