MOSCOW, December 25. The head of Sberbank German Gref expects continuation of the trend of the weakening of the ruble in 2016. He declared it in interview to TV channel “Russia 24”.
“Oil prices are very much linked to the Federal reserve policy. The key trends are all connected with further lowering. The dollar is likely to strengthen. Will the fed tightened policy. This means that the largest derivative market – the oil market dollars will go. From the point of view of the monetary situation, the price of oil should fall. Of course, the ruble will fall,” – said Gref.
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Gref also believes that accurate forecasts of oil prices today it is hard to provide, most likely it will fluctuate in the range of plus or minus 10% of the current.
“Our whole economy depends on a key parameter is the oil price Today… 35-36 price (dollars per barrel). Thus, we can say that it will fluctuate in the coming months in the region of plus or minus 10% in both directions. But what it will be, no one can know”, he said.
“If next year the macro-economy will be stable, that is, not to mention the price of oil at $100, but we are talking about $45-50, then next year we will see that will consistently dropping the key rate of the Central Bank, inflation and interest rates on loans,” – said Gref.
Gref believes that this crisis is less painful for entrepreneurs than the 2009 crisis.
“To our surprise, the crisis runs much less painful than the crisis of 2009 He went for the benefit of borrowers. A lot of these “bubbles” entrepreneurs burst in 2008-2009″, – he said.
Gref noted that the banking sector is much less fraudulent schemes. “We see the desire of entrepreneurs to fight for the rescue of their companies,” he added.
About banking sector
Difficult situation in the banking sector will remain, but 2016 will be easier for banks, said the head of Sberbank.
“The most difficult for banking was the year 2015 If any other extraordinary event will occur next year, most likely, this year will be for the banking sector, not the economy as a whole, more easy,” says Gref.
On the work of the savings Bank
According to Gref, the financial results of Sberbank by the end of 2015 will be 25-30% worse than in 2014, but better than those expected at the beginning of the year.
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Sberbank’s net profit under Russian accounting standards (RAS) for 2014 amounted to 305,7 billion rubles a year earlier – 377,6 billion. According to the report, the savings Bank in 2014 increased allocations to reserves in 3,8 times – up to 397,7 billion rubles.
“Our performance will be (2015) year by about 25-30% worse than last year. But significantly better than our expectations at the beginning of the year. We set ourselves the task at the beginning of the year to go to “zero” this year. However, we in the first 11 months under RAS received more than 200 billion (rubles) net profit. We believe that this is a good result,” he said.
According to the head of Sberbank, the whole period was passed without any support from the state. “For us it was psychologically, morally important,” he said.
“We assume that this year has been for us, in General, successful. If you compare with the rest of the banking sector, probably very successful,” said Gref.
Gref said that Sberbank plans to drastically reduce the number of branches.
“At some point we will start drastically to reduce the number of branches. For our size we have to be much smaller”, – he explained.
The head of Sberbank noted that reduced the number of branches for corporate customers “about twice” and slightly decreased the number of offices to service individuals.
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“Every year we thought that next year we will start the decline of our offices. Last year the flow of customers in our physical offices increased by 16%. This year, in 11 months we see about 8%. That is, the time has not come”, – said Gref.
However, he stressed that the popularity begin to use projects with remote access. “At some point, the turnaround, of course, will happen. When you start to decrease the flow of customers in our physical offices”, – said Gref.
Commenting on the possible reduction of the Bank’s employees, Gref stressed that “everything depends on the volume of business.”
“Our numbers are adjusted automatically. We are not officials,” he said, and added that headcount will fall, and also with the “modernization processes”.
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“While we have significant cuts are not made. Until we change our business model,” he said. It is, according to him, in particular, to increase the number of employees on work with clients.
Sberbank is going to get to save costs when migrating to new technology platforms data processing $1 billion in 2016, said Gref.
“We set ourselves the task of translating traditional banking platform to a modern platform technology companies by type of Amazon or Google. This is the platform that we developed themselves and which in a short time to be completed. Under this platform we will build all the technology in the data center in SKOLKOVO. The end result of this plus 1 billion plus of net income and reducing expenditure,” said Gref.
According to him, Sberbank in 2013 adopted a program “Smart expenses”, which gave 105 billion rubles additional reduction in costs. From 2018, the Bank will save about $1 billion a year on costs that it has today.
About “Mechel”
The agreement on debt restructuring of “Mechel” has yet to be signed, Gref said.
“I cannot, with regret, to conclude that we agreed on debt restructuring of “Mechel”, because we have not yet signed the agreement. We are not the leading Bank in crediting of “Mechel”. We have less debt than that of Gazprombank and VTB” – said Gref.
