Sberbank is ready to pay clients almost 10 billion rubles for loyalty / M. Stulov / Vedomosti

This year, Sberbank is going to spend 9.7 billion rubles on bonuses for clients, according to information on the government procurement website. We are talking about the loyalty program "Thank you from Sberbank".

A Sberbank representative said that the bank annually makes a forecast of the amount of bonuses written off under this program, and this year it amounted to about 9.7 billion rubles. According to him, 19 million people participate in the program. A year earlier, Sberbank spent 1 billion rubles less on payments to clients - 8.8 billion rubles, according to documents on the state procurement portal.

It is extremely difficult to assess the effect of the program, knowing only the expenditure part; it is necessary to assess the program's contribution to the increase in transaction turnover, says an employee of a top-10 bank. Any bank wants to make customers spend more in stores, he continues. A representative of Sberbank did not answer to what extent the program helped increase the profitability of the card business.

Millions of loyal

Sberbank issued 117.9 million cards by the end of 2015, of which about 80% were active, according to the bank’s presentation

Loyalty programs are the answer for the client to the question of what is the benefit of using cards rather than cash, explains an employee of the international payment system. "We are now seeing an increase in turnover on cards of banks that have such programs," he points out. And he adds that if a client spends money at a partner outlet, then, as a rule, part of the expenses are sponsored by the merchants themselves - for them, this is an additional channel for attracting clients.

Loyalty programs are tools for developing relationships with existing clients, but in some cases they also influence the client's choice of bank, says Deputy Chairman of the Board of Raiffeisenbank Andrey Stepanenko. A representative of Tinkoff Bank indicated that the bank attracts clients with the help of programs, and their active users make more transactions.

VTB 24 paid out over 300 million roubles to its clients in 2015, its representative reported. This year's payments will depend on the clients' activity, but he assumes that they will grow by at least one and a half to two times. More than 2.2 million clients are registered in the VTB 24 loyalty programme, and the turnover on its participants' cards is on average 1.5 times higher than the turnover on the cards of other clients.

How much does "Thank you" cost for Sberbank?