Sberbank Opens First Branch In Crimea
Yalta, Crimea, Russia
Sberbank has opened its first branch in Crimea, on Sovetskaya Square in Yalta. Crimean Governor, Sergei Aksyonov said that “A good thing is happening, revolutionary: Russia’s largest bank is opening its first branch in Crimea” at the opening ceremony on Saturday.
A second branch is scheduled to be opened later in the year in Simferopol. Sberbank announced the start of work in January. By late February, 30 stationary ATMs had begun operating in Crimea. In early March Sberbank announced that it had begun working with businesses.
Currently, Crimea has a limited number of banks, all of which have been under operating restrictions since 2014. The United States cut Sberbank off the SWIFT banking network in early April 2022; several other countries later followed suit. Crimean banks are now connected to Russia’s SPFS financial messaging system.
Yalta was where Russian Soviet era leader Joseph Stalin met with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and American President Franklin Roosevelt to discuss the restructuring of Europe after World War Two. It had previously been a resort style town favored by Russian aristocrats, with Crimea having been conquered by Catherine the Great in the Crimean War with the Ottoman Empire in 1783.
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