Sberbank of Russia’s Ural branch sold over $60m worth of American Express checks in 2008. This means that these traveler’s checks’ sales have increased by more than nine times over the last five years, while the share of euro checks doubled and now comes to 30% of the total check volume.

Traveler’s checks are most often used on trips and during some business transactions carried out abroad (like buying a car or a fur coat), since no limit is set on the amount of money one could carry abroad in the TC format. Then, some customers prefer to keep their savings in the form of traveler’s checks and use them to pay for their hotel stays and shopping.

‘Sberbank of Russia is the world’s top TC seller at the moment. We’ve got more than 600 TC-selling offices in our Ural branch alone; these outlets both sell American Express checks and cash in American Express, Thomas Cook, Visa, and CitiСorp ones,’ says the spokesperson for the bank.