Cistran Finance Exploring the Spirit of Capitalism's New Frontier

Tuesday, March 26, 2024

Alfa-Bank sees growth in small business segment in 2013

Alfa-Bank announced on Tuesday that the fee revenues in its small business segment grew 45 percent in 2013 to $58.2 million.

Alfa-Bank's monthly on-demand customer deposits grew as well, increasing 41 percent to $852 million, according to the company's 2013 performance results. The bank also experienced a 57 percent increase in its number of small business and individual entrepreneur customers.

Alfa-Bank's market share increased nearly two-fold by the end of 2013.

"For us it is important to maintain low risk level, therefore we are not striving to build up aggressively our credit portfolio," Mikhail Povaly, the head of mass business at Alfa-Bank, said. "Our anchor product is not lending, but transaction services, including those products and technologies that support our customers' day-to-day business.

Alfa Bank began working with small businesses and individual entrepreneurs in 2010. The bank's small business credit portfolio grew by 30 percent by the end of 2013.

"We want to help business develop further on, and with this in view, we focus not only on traditional banking services, but also on the creation of non-financial services, which idea was enthusiastically welcomed by our customers," Povaly said. "It covers legal support, a joint product launched with Yandex-Direct and a unique business concierge-service."

Alfa-Bank is Russia's largest private bank in terms of total assets, customer accounts, total equity and loan portfolio.