OREANDA-NEWS. January 29, 2015. Sberbank has been named Russia’s top trade finance bank (“Best Trade Finance in Russia 2015”) for the third year in a row by international financial magazine Global Finance.

The winners of the nomination “The World’s Best Trade Finance Banks By Country 2015” were selected by an authoritative jury who reviewed the performance of top trade finance providers from 84 countries in 2014. The award was conferred based on input from leading economics and finance analysts, corporate executives and other professionals, as well as a poll of Global Finance’s readership. As usual, criteria for choosing the winners included: transaction volume, scope of global coverage, customer service, competitive pricing and innovative technologies.

The award ceremony was held on January 21 at the BAFT Europe Bank to Bank Forum in Amsterdam. The complete list of winners will be published in the print edition of the magazine in February and also on the website GFMag.com.

Joseph D. Giarraputo, publisher and editorial director of Global Finance, remarked that as trade finance providers deal with new regulations this is having a significant effect on trade finance capacity, in particular across emerging markets.

Commenting on the award, Andrey Ivanov, Head of the Trade Finance and Correspondence Relations Division at Sberbank CIB1, said: “It is a big honour to once again receive the ‘Best Trade Finance in Russia’ award from Global Finance. Despite the challenging geopolitical situation, in 2014 Sberbank did more business in this area than in the year before, with the volume of completed trade finance and documentary business transactions exceeding USD36 bln.”

As it continues to cooperate with European banks, Sberbank is also actively growing its share of business with Asian partners. Recently there has been a significant increase in the number of transactions with banks from China, South Korea, Singapore and India. The volume of settlements and trade financing in national currencies (Chinese yuan, Russian roubles, etc.) is also increasing.

“The latest award shows that our business is stable even in the most difficult of times for the Russian economy, and is proof that trade finance at the Sberbank Group must continue to develop,” added Mr Ivanov.