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Vtb

“Can Russia's second-largest state bank rebuild a full-stack financial operating system for Russian businesses and citizens after being cut off from Western financial infrastructure?”

Founded1990
HQSaint Petersburg / Moscow, Russia
IndustryBank / National
The story

Founded as the Soviet Union's foreign trade bank in 1990, VTB grew into Russia's second-largest bank by assets through a combination of state backing and aggressive acquisitions of retail and corporate banking franchises. Following its 2007 IPO and the 2018 merger with VTB24, VTB positioned itself as a universal bank serving retail, SMB, corporate, and government clients. The 2022 Western sanctions severely curtailed its international operations, forcing a domestic pivot toward Mir payment system infrastructure, digital assets, and correspondent banking within sanctioned-friendly jurisdictions.

Last 12 months
2023-01
Product timeline
1990
Founded as Vneshtorgbank, a state-owned bank focused on foreign trade finance for the Soviet Union and later Russia.· banking
2006
Rebranded to VTB and expanded into retail banking via VTB24 subsidiary.· banking
2007
IPO on Moscow Exchange and London Stock Exchange, raising approximately $8 billion — one of Russia's largest IPOs.· ipo
2018
Merged VTB24 retail bank into the parent VTB Bank entity, consolidating the retail and corporate banking operations.· banking
2022
Sanctioned by the US, EU, and UK following Russia's invasion of Ukraine; cut off from SWIFT and international correspondent banking networks.· banking
2023
Partnered with Skolkovo Ventures to transform the digital assets sector in Russia.· banking
Regulated entities
1
regulatory licence held by Vtb
Licence types, jurisdictions and registered entities are in the Embedded Finance Index report.
The stack
5 layers disclosed in Vtb’s embedded-finance stack
Payments / PSP
VTB Payments (self-operated)
Banking / BaaS
in the full report
Card issuing
in the full report
Lending
in the full report
FX & payouts
in the full report
Accounting gap: minor
10 more providers across 4 layers, with confidence-scored evidence and source URLs, are in the Embedded Finance Index report.