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goals and tasks facing the management for the development of the banking business". However, some Minsk-based market experts attribute the controversial move to the possibility that Lukashenko is acting in the interests of German Gref, the head of Russia's Sberbank. Russian billionaire Mikhail Gutseriev, the authoritarian president's confidant and one of the richest businessmen in Russia, could be a mediator in the deal, they say. Earlier, Lukashenko invalidated his July special decree in which he approved the acquisition of Paritetbank for $50mn by businessman Viktor Prokopenya, who has dual Belarusian-Cypriot citizenship. Prokopenya is a business partner of Said Gutseriev, the 29-year-old son of Mikhail Gutseriev. Previously, Prokopenya submitted documents to the NBU requesting approval for his indirect acquisition of 100% of shares in the Ukrainian operations of Russia's Sberbank via Paritetbank. However, the businessman withdrew his documents again. "We have made the decision to withdraw from the NBU our bid to purchase Ukraine's Sberbank in order to focus on other planned investments and the projects we are working on," a representative of Prokopenya's VP Capital said in a statement on August 3, 2017. In July, the NBU refused to approve the acquisition of the local operations of Sberbank by Gutseriev, and another businessman, Grigoriy Guselnikov, who controls Norvik Bank in Latvia.
Russia's state-controlled bank Sberbank processed 9bn credit and debit card payments in 2017, making it the sixth largest operator in the world in terms of volume, Vedomosti d aily said on October 11 citing the Nilson Report data. The transactions count both offline, online, and mobile payments. According to the Central Bank of Russia, last year 17.9bn card transactions for a total value of RUB16 trillion were made in Russia in 2017. Thus, with 9bn transactions Sberbank makes up 50% of the market's volume. As of September 1 2018, Sberbank had 1.7mn card payment terminals installed across Russia, while servicing over 50,000 online outlets. The bank is also the largest card issuer in Russia, with about 50% market share, the head of the National Payment Council Alma Obaeva told Vedomosti. Sberbank also services the largest online payment aggregator Yandex.Kassa in which it holds a 75% stake, Obaeva reminded. Apart from Sberbank, another five Russian banks made the Nilsen report, namely VTB (1.28bn transactions), Gazprombank, Alfa Bank, Promsvyazbank, and Russian Standard Bank.
Sberbank has increased the minimum rates on consumer loans by 1–2 percentage points since October 15, Interfax reports. “The change in interest rates is a consequence of adaptation to current market conditions, including taking into account the increase in deposit rates and the growth of the key rate,” he explained. According to data posted on the Sberbank website , the minimum loan rate (from RUB300,000 to RUB1mn) for clients who receive a salary or pension on a bank card is 12.9%, the minimum rate for other clients is 13.9%. The minimum loan rate (up to RUB300,000) for payroll clients is 13.9%, for the rest 14.9%. The loan rate of RUB1mn. upon receipt of a salary or pension to an account with Sberbank - 12.9%, for other customers - 13.9%. In August, Sberbank reduced interest rates on loans for any purposes within the framework of the action by 0.2–1.2 pp. The campaign ended on October 15. Since October 12, Sberbank has raised rates on ruble deposits, and earlier on foreign currency deposits. Sberbank and VTB raised rates of ruble deposits above 7% per annum
70 RUSSIA Country Report November 2018 www.intellinews.com