‘The management of Bank VTB decided to lay off about 10% of actual employees and cut down on vacancies in both the head office and the subsidiaries. The decision regarding the redundancies was made within the framework of the bank’s expense-cutting program adopted by the Board in November 2008. Under this program, a ban on taking in any more staff has already been introduced,’ the bank’s Yekaterinburg subsidiary reported.

‘The economic recession made it necessary to work more effectively, so some of our processes were improved thanks to the new operational and business methods and launch of new information technologies,’ the bank representative added.