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MOSCOW - RUSSIA'S largest retail bank Sberbank wants to shed up to 70,000 jobs by 2014, a quarter of its workforce, the Kommersant daily reported on Friday, citing a plan approved by the bank's board this week.
'As indicated in the documents from Sberbank, if in 2007 the bank employed about 270,000 people, then by 2013 the number of employees will not exceed 200,000-220,000,' the newspaper said.
'Thus the bank is determined to cut from 20 to 30 per cent of its personnel, or one out of every four employees,' Mr Kommersant said, adding that the plan was worked out just as the global financial crisis hit Russia.
A Sberbank spokesman told AFP she could not immediately comment on the report or release the new development strategy, which was approved on Tuesday.
The state-controlled banking giant, which has more than 20,000 branches across Russia and succeeded a Soviet-era banking monopoly, has been pursuing a modernisation programme to transform itself into a Western-style bank.
Like banks around the world, Sberbank has taken a beating amid the global financial crisis, with its shares on Moscow's RTS stock market losing around 60 per cent of their value since the beginning of Sept. -- AFP
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