‘Russian private banking market has been developing quite rapidly lately, but this is mainly due to Moscow that has always been in control of the majority of Russian VIP customers,’ the Russian Academy of Public Service under the President of the Russian Federation’s leading expert Alexei Gusev announced in the course of the 3d All-Russian Private Banking/Russia 2008 conference in Yekaterinburg.

Alexei Gusev believes regional private banking is not available to customers at the moment, as no large banks are willing to work in provinces.

‘Quite ironically, the country’s major banks have been talking about developing private banking in Russian regions for two years now, but we haven’t made any progress at all over these two years,’ he notes.

The experts feel regional private banking is hindered by the lack of advanced technologies indispensable for this particular banking service.