Tracing its origins to 1841, Sberbank is the oldest and largest credit insitution in Russia, controlling one-quarter of the country’s banking industry. The company controls 50 percent of retail deposits and has a 30 percent share of the Russian loan market The bank is the primary lending institution for Russia’s major industries including oil, natural gas, and mining companies. The Central Bank of the Russian Federation is the majority shareholder in the company. Sberbank has approximately 20,000 branches with 261,000 employees and revenues of $20 billion. It also operates in Kazakhstan and Ukraine. The current president and CEO of Sberbank is German Gref, who also headed the Ministry of Economics and Trade from 2000 to 2007.
Historical Dictionary of the Russian Federation. Robert A. Saunders and Vlad Strukov. 2010.