Sberbank of Russia’s Ural branch has been able to attract more than 149 billion RUR worth of private customers’ investments by now, with 20.3 billion RUR placed with the bank in January-September 2008 alone. The ruble deposits made up the lion’s share of all investments and amounted to 17.3 billion RUR, while the foreign currency deposits only rose by 2.9 billion RUR in nine months of 2009, the bank’s press officer reports.

‘This stable growth in the amount of investments means that people see a bank deposit as one of the most attractive ways of investing money. Buying shares or real estate is getting risky, so the bank is now more or less the only place where one can both keep one’s money and make it yield some income, as both the profit and the dependability are guaranteed by the state,’ says Sberbank’s Ural branch’s Deposit Management Director Marina Papakova.

‘Sberbank’s Ural branch was able to both increase the private customers’ investments and build up its share of the market over the last six months. In times of instability, most people who have to choose between profitability and reliability actually choose reliability,’ she adds.