OREANDA-NEWS. In 2015 around 700 million people used Sberbank's services at the bank's offices. 91% of these clients spent no more than 10 minutes waiting to be served. This was announced by Alexander Torbkahov, Deputy Chairman of the Executive Board, at a press conference on the 2015 preliminary results of the bank's retail block.

In the outgoing year, Sberbank launched technology that allows decisions to be made on issuing consumer loans in 15 minutes. It is expected that the total sum of consumer loans provided in 2015 will top RUB 500 bln.

Over 11 months of 2015, Sberbank provided RUB 580 bln worth of mortgages to 379,000 families.

"Under the state subsidised mortgage lending programme, in 10 months of 2015 we issued 95,000 loans worth a total of RUB 162 bln," stated Mr Torbkahov. "Sberbank continues to be the absolute leader in terms of the number of loans provided under the programme. We intend to keep on actively working in this area."

Over 11 months of 2015, Sberbank's share of the mortgage lending market has grown by 2.7 pp to 38.6%.

The number of active Sberbank debit cards has grown by 15.6% over 11 months of 2015 and now exceeds 100 mln. During the same period, the number of active credit cards has increased by 6% to 15.4 mln. In terms of acquiring, Sberbank recorded growth of 35% in 2015 and was approaching RUB 750 bln at the end of the third quarter.

Assets of held by individuals at the bank exceeded 10.3 tln (rouble equivalent) as of December 17, 2015.

Payments that Sberbank clients made for mobile communications, utilities, and to the budget and non-budgetary funds grew by 21% over the year.

"Despite the challenging economic situation, Sberbank's retail business performed well this year. This is directly linked to the reliability that our bank provides and the trust of our clients," commented Mr Torbkahov. "We will continue to not only meet our clients' expectations, but also exceed them."