OREANDA-NEWS. September 03, 2007. Iryna Kniazeva: “When elaborating Ukrsotsbank development strategy we decided not to follow blindly the quantity by opening several hundred branches annually, reported the press-centre of Ukrsotsbank.

We match up very tough the plans on branches net development with the Bank and its business growth requirement. Moreover, today we reorganize very seriously already existing net of branches; bring it about corporate standards, change locations of our branches and make it more convenient for our clients. In Kyiv, for instance, we do not open branches with less than 150 square meters area.

There is a following standard: quadrature, functions, product range we sell, depending upon the raion (district) where it happens.

We have two formats of points of sale – finance centers (there as well as in banks one can get insurance, realtor and other services) and multi-purpose branches. Today, routine operations like, for instance, payments on loans servicing and public services payments are being the most popular in the Bank branches. In the nearest future we will transfer the like operations to alternative sales channels: the operations will be performed in self-service zones, via Internet-banking, ATM net, Call Centers etc. it is not only more convenient for a client it will allow to save his and our time as well as money.

We will need the Bank branches for complex products sale mainly. That’s why lower expenditures for retail net keeping will allow decreasing the services prime cost and increasing their compatibility.

Besides, if we estimate net efficiency in “number of branches – loan portfolio volume” ratio by comparing Ukrsotsbank and Privatbank or Raiffaizen Bank Aval, we may see that our strategy proves itself already now. It turns out that the loan portfolio volume slightly depends upon the number of branches”.