VTB Bank values ongoing digital transformation at $1.5bn

Written by Alex Hamilton
23rd April 2021

VTB Bank, one of Russia’s largest financial institutions, says it expects to save $1.5 billion thanks to its ongoing digital transformation projects.

VTB expects the $1.5 billion to accrue over a four-year period

The transformation programme involves the deployment eight new platforms and services at the bank.

These include changes to omnichannel provision; a new retail and corporate credit pipeline service; new data analytics, automation and cloud platforms; and a new open API interface.

Vadim Kulik, deputy president and board chairman, says in a statement the $1.5 billion savings will to accrue over a four-year period.

He adds VTB has completed more than half of its planned volume of technological transformation work.

“We have implemented technological transformation in record time. We have already changed the IT infrastructure that previously held back our technological development opportunities.

“As part of the transformation, we launched 14 separate programmes and reduced time to market by eight times.”

VTB has also transferred VTB Online to a new IT architecture. The bank says this has doubled the speed of the platform and reduced response time on its interfaces.

Complete rebuild

“The IT infrastructure [is] completely rebuilt,” says Kulik. “The model of work of IT specialists has been changed. Technological platforms have been created which, among other things, are the basis for the development of the bank’s open ecosystem.”

FinTech Futures spoke to Kulik in January, when the deputy president waxed lyrical about his bank’s efforts in the competitive Russian banking space.

He divulged details about the long weekends when rolling out new products, and how he struggles to keep pace with what he calls the “three nightmares”: Yandex, Sber, and Tinkoff.

VTB operates more than 750 different It systems, according to Kulik, but works with more than 1,280 development teams to get that number cut down.