UrBC, Yekaterinburg, June 16, 2016. The Ural Bank for Reconstruction and Development (UBRD) opened an online shop on the social network VKontakte, the bank’s press service reports.

Customers can now submit their bank card or deposit applications to the bank’s official group on VKontakte.

The bank’s Internet Communications Director Mikhail Zenkov says today’s customers often look for good quality service and technological advances as well as for appealing terms and conditions, so it’s important to provide banking services where customers need them, social networks included.


’No business goals have been set for this shop so far. This is a new tool on a social network that we decided to use. For the time being, this is an extra opportunity to demonstrate our product range.

However, this is a fully functional tool: if a customer applies for a credit or debit card online, they will be automatically directed to our website where they will only need to fill in a compact application form and then pick up their card at a branch,’ Zenkov says.

The shop currently features nine banking services, with more on the way.