СВЯЗНОЙ (Svyaznoy)

Svyaznoy is one of Russia’s biggest mobile phone handset retailers, with close to 3,000 different stores based throughout Russia and Belarus. It is responsible for around a quarter of the Russian smartphone retail market. Its market share was certainly boosted by being offered the exclusive rights to sell Apple’s iPhone into the Russian market.

Since 2010, the company has been concentrating resources on developing a new banking chain. This has been organised in partnership with AK Promtorgbank, with the chain taking the name Svyaznoy Bank. Its headquarters is based in the Russian capital, Moscow.

It does not appear to have been a great success. In November 2015, its banking licence was revoked by the Bank of Russia. The decision was taken because the bank had failed to maintain sufficient capital reserves. It was therefore deemed to be in violation of Russian banking regulations because it had underestimated its level of credit risk. At the time of this decision, it was ranked as the 150th biggest bank in Russia, so its collapse had little impact on the Russian economy.

While the smartphone retail side of the business continues to go from strength to strength, the banking division would appear to be defunct. The banks official website is deemed by my search engine to be insecure and therefore blocked. Not a good sign for a bank!