OREANDA-NEWS. VTB Shareholders Consultative Council has held its first meeting of 2014, attended by President and Chairman of the Management Board Andrey Kostin, First Deputy President and Chairman of the Management Board Vasily Titov, and Alexander Kuznetsov, Senior Vice President and Head of the Investment department of the bank's retail arm, VTB 24.

Mr Kostin spoke about VTB's 2013 results and told minority shareholders about the group's strategy for further growth. “In the current economic situation, our priorities lie with increasing business efficiency and cutting costs,” Mr Kostin said. “We have some fat that can be trimmed. We will focus on further developing the high-margin segments of the banking market - retail banking and lending to medium-sized businesses. We are also planning some major improvements in our IT systems.”

Vladimir Khotkin, the Head of VTB's Shareholder Relations, gave an overview of the service's work with minority shareholders last year, and presented VTB's programme to increase shareholder loyalty and to make VTB shares more attractive to Russian private investors in 2014. The programme involves more interaction with regional shareholders, new formats for working with minority shareholders and the further improvement of the bank's feedback systems.

Mr Kuznetsov spoke about VTB 24's services for investors in shares and FX, including security transactions on the Russian and international stock markets, international FX deals, buying and selling of shares in mutual funds as well as individual client asset management in Russia. Participants made several suggestions as to the future development of VTB Group's brokerage services, and also approved the new edition of the VTB Shareholders Consultative Council Regulations.

The next council meeting is scheduled for April 2014.