The head of Sberbank, German Gref, on Monday told Russian President Vladimir Putin about the results of the bank’s work over five years and that the financial institution’s assets during this time have grown more than threefold and will reach 17 trillion rubles by the end of the year, the ITAR-TASS agency reported .

The President and Chairman of the Board of Sberbank informed Putin that in October the bank's supervisory board will consider a new five-year strategy and assured that all financial parameters of the previous strategy were fulfilled almost a year earlier. Over the past five years, he said, the bank's assets have more than tripled - from 4.9 trillion rubles at the beginning of 2008 to 17 trillion rubles expected at the end of 2013. Accordingly, Sberbank’s profit increased by 3.5 times, and the volume of investments in new technologies also increased by 3 times.

Gref told Putin that over the past five years, the entire technological core of the bank has been significantly transformed, huge amounts of money have been invested in new technologies and the reformatting of Sberbank branches. Gref expressed regret that the bank he heads is sorely lacking both time and money to keep up with competitors and the most modern banks that operate in Western markets.

Gref said that in the first half of 2013, Sberbank had already earned 14.5 billion rubles on international markets, and by the end of the year it would earn $900 million in net profit on foreign markets. He called this a key direction of the bank's policy to support Russian companies in those markets in which they are traditionally present. We are talking about 20 countries. The share of foreign subsidiaries in the group’s assets is about 10%.

Gref reported to Putin on the growth of Sberbank assets to 17 trillion rubles