‘Our shareholders see Metcombank as a niche business that will develop dynamically in four main directions, aspiring to become the regional leader and possibly the country-wide leader as well in each of them. Two of these direction have to do with our retail services, one of them is related to services we render to businesses, and the last one is connected with a number of certain investment projects,’ Metcombank’s Chairman of the Supervisory Board Rustam Mamatov said to UrBC.

‘The niche bank status presupposes working with some rather broad categories of customers with special needs. Once we have secured these customer segments’ loyalty within our niche, we can hope to retain these groups as our customers when launching some very diverse product ranges,’ he added.

‘For example, setting up a ‘personal settlement center’ is one of the projects we need to work on. This center is a system with a multi-channel access to one’s accounts that will allow our customers to make all kinds of payments, including paying their housing bills. We are already cooperating with some enterprises from the energy sector that are willing to take part in the creation of the system. I think the number of such partners that we’ll work with will keep growing,’ the executive observed.

‘The personal settlement center gives our customers an opportunity of managing their own accounts themselves. Firstly, they will be able to make payments of all sorts; secondly, they can handle their accounts, borrow money on credit or repay their loans, and top up their deposit accounts. Remarkably, the access to customers’ personal accounts will really be a multi-channel one and will include a contact center, m-banking and e-banking services, ATMs, and self-service terminals. It took us over six months to complete the technological part of the project and to set up the supporting infrastructure, but now we are fully prepared to launch this truly industrial banking product,’ Rustam Mamatov said.