Russia’s Sberbank Made Record Annual Profits in 2023

Russia’s largest lender Sberbank made a record net profit of ₽1.5 trillion (US$16.3 billion) in 2023, as Russia’s financial sector recovers from western sanctions.

Sberbank’s IFRS full-year results, published on February 28^th 2024, showed a more than fivefold increase in profits on the previous year, primarily achieved through a high level of lending activity. It corresponds to around half of what all the Russian banks together generated in 2023.

With a stake of 51%, the Russian state is the majority shareholder of Sberbank, whose chief executive Herman Gref is a longtime economic confidant of Vladimir Putin. The bank has a quasi-monopoly status, holding about half of Russian retail deposits, while about one in three Russians hold accounts with the bank.

Sberbank has been heavily sanctioned by the West and was disconnected from the global SWIFT payment network in May 2022.