Russia's Sberbank Removes Bank Logo And Starts Entering Digital Business

SberBank started the artificial intelligence business. (photo: twitter @sebrbank)

JAKARTA - Supercomputer and artificial intelligence (AI) upgrades are both part of Sberbank's enhanced digital service offerings such as cloud computing and virtual assistant software, Chief Technology Officer David Rafalovsky told Reuters on Wednesday, November 10.

Russia's largest lending company, Sberbank, is investing more in non-banking services as it shifts towards offering more technology systems, even last year removing "bank" from its logo. That Thursday they launched Christofari Neo, their second supercomputer, to meet the demand for internal and external AI that had exceeded expectations.

The supercomputer is named after the bank's first customer 180 years ago, Nikolai Christofari.

The lender, along with other Russian companies including Yandex and Tinkoff, is developing a so-called service ecosystem beyond its core business, something Sberbank says is needed to combat falling margins for traditional banks.

The central bank has proposed that banks may need to create additional buffers if ecosystem investments exceed 30% of their total capital, but a final decision has yet to be made.

But Rafalovsky said Sberbank, whose ecosystem includes e-commerce, cybersecurity and cloud services, has room to continue investing hundreds of millions of dollars in technology.

"We are not constrained in terms of the ability to invest, in terms of capital," Rafalovsky said in an interview. "We are investing more now (than a year ago). Our overall investment in core IT infrastructure and products is increasing."

He said Sberbank's main technology constraint was attracting the best information technology (IT) talent to their company.

Sberbank needed that talent to further expand its technological arsenal. The most "commercially significant" update, says Rafalovsky, is ML Space Private, an AI development tool that third parties can use without being fully connected to SberCloud.

This, he said, is important for many Russian companies who may not be able to run sensitive data through Sberbank's commercial cloud platform.

Sberbank, the majority stake is owned by the Russian government. They have assets of 521.5 billion US dollars (Rp 7,437 trillion) and a market value of around 113 billion US dollars (Rp 1,611 trillion).

Chief Executive Officer German Gref on Tuesday, November 9 said Sberbank is eyeing the market to expand its digital offerings in other European countries. While Rafalovsky hinted that a digital asset spin-off is possible in due course.

"We are ready to be able to do it at the right time," he said. "Time to do this is as important as having something to develop."