Sberbank of Russia’s Ural branch has issued three million bank cards by December 2008, with over 700,000 cards offered to customers in 2008 alone.

Sberbank of Russia issues and deals with MasterCard and Visa cards as well as Sbercart, the Russian system.

‘The increase in the number of cards is accompanied by the dynamic expansion of servicing infrastructure. For one, thee bank runs over 900 cash terminals, 1,675 ATMs, and 462 information & transaction terminals in all the areas of its economic presence. This means our customers can get their cash, top up their bank card account, and make various kinds of payments like housing and mobile phone bills, the traffic wardens’ fines, and loan payments easily and painlessly. They can also transfer money from one bank card account into another or have their currency exchanged. Sberbank’s Ural branch has more than 9,000 business partners that accept its cards in their POS terminals,’ the bank reports.

‘Every other family living in the Urals is using Sberbank’s cards at the moment. Given this impressive number of clients based in Sverdlovsk, Chelyabinsk, and Kurgan Regions as well as in Bashkortostan, the bank primarily aims to put even more emphasis on the further infrastructure development. We need to make sure our ATMs and terminals are trouble-free; we also intend to set up a number of 24/7 self-service offices where our customers will find every banking service available,’ says Sberbank’s Ural branch’s Bank Cards Management Director Svetlana Skorinova.