By Andrei Skvarsky.
Russia’s biggest lender Sberbank has changed its name to Sber and has had its logo redesigned.
Sberbank is more than a bank these days but is a “universe of services for the individual and for business”, the lender said in a statement in explaining the rebranding, which was announced during a large-scale online conference on September 24 entitled SberConf.
Sber will be the brand for the majority of services provided by Sberbank’s ecosystem and ranging from robotics to healthcare, food delivery and real estate deals.
Sberbank first deputy chief executive Lev Khasis told an online news conference on September 24 that the bank expected the ecosystem’s non-financial services to provide between 20 and 30 per cent of the bank’s income.
The new brand will take several years to completely replace the previous one, according to the statement.
The rebranding is estimated to cost about 2.5bn roubles (about $31m at today’s exchange rate), which would be spent over a period of five to six years, the statement said. Khasis, at the September 24 news conference, denied rumours that put the cost at between $250m and $300m.
Sberbank will change its websites quickly but its credit and debit cards will remain valid until their expiry dates and its current automated teller machines (ATMs) will be replaced after aging out of service.
Signboards on Sberbank branches will gradually be changed over a few years.
Sberbank chief executive Herman Gref, in answering a question from EmergingMarkets.me during an online news conference on September 25, said he had received a multitude of comments about the rebranding from all over the world and that none of them were negative.
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