License as ticket - Gazprombank accompanies Vladimir Putin on his visit to Serbia?

Speculations that Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin will be accompanied by Gazprombank on his visit to Serbia in late March cannot be confirmed by any of competent persons. However, according to the unofficial news from Moscow, this bank, of which arrival in Serbia was first announced two years ago, is ready to buy one of the local banks such as Postal Savings Bank or Srpska Banka.

But, as people at the National Bank of Serbia explain, Gazprombank has not applied for the license to operate in our country yet. By the way, that is the usual procedure preceding the entrance of a bank in the country.

- The announcements that Gazprombank may take over Srpska Banka is not logical because the state does not intend to sell us - said people at that bank.

- First of all, we should provide guarantees for the business with Algeria, which can be done only by a bank that is majority owned by the state. As far as the sale of Postal Savings Bank is concerned, it is also not likely that Gazprombank wants to buy that bank since it has 600,000 checking accounts opened by pensioners and pays all social allowances, and that type of operations cannot possibly be interesting to Russians.

- There are 33 banks operating in our country and they are mainly privately owned by foreigners - says Goran Nikolic, an economist.

- Five banks have the biggest market shares and rank highest in the size of capital. They were also among the first to come to Serbia in the first place. An exception is Komercijalna Bank, which is a domestic bank. All banks that have entered Serbia over the past four years are registering losses because they have not enough clients. Among them is the Bank of Moscow, which has been opened to work with companies, Russian enterprises in particular.

Owned by City of Moscow

The first bank from Russia to enter Serbia was the Bank of Moscow with the capital of 10 to 15 million euros. Its official majority owner is the city of Moscow with a 44% stake in its possession. But unofficial sources claim that the real boss is the former Mayor of Moscow. By the way, Russian police have announced that an investigation has been started in the Bank of Moscow, which is one of the three leading banks in this country. It has two branch offices in our country - one in Belgrade and the other in Novi Sad.