Published by Global Banking and Finance Review
Posted on September 17, 2025
2 min readLast updated: January 21, 2026
VTB bank aims to capture 30% of Russia's trade with friendly countries by 2026, focusing on commission income amid a drop in net interest income.
MOSCOW (Reuters) -Russian state-owned bank VTB aims to service 30% of Russian economic activity with so-called friendly countries by 2026, doubling its previous target, CFO and deputy vice president Dmitry Pyanov said on Wednesday.
VTB - facing a drop in net interest income, traditionally its main driver of profit - has turned to scaling up its income from commissions.
It is Russia's second-largest lender and is the only Russian bank with a fully-fledged branch in China, Russia's main foreign trading partner.
"At the end of 2025, we expect to exceed an 18% share of foreign economic activity and will raise the strategic target for 2026 to approximately 30%,” Pyanov said. VTB had initially set a target of 15% of Russian foreign trade excluding Turkey and the UAE over 2024-2026, Pyanov added.
"Net commission income is a measure of the accuracy of our post-sanctions strategy to preserve our subsidiary banks and our branches in friendly countries," Pyanov said.
"A significant part of net commission income is no longer credit commission income related to retail lending, but transaction and conversion net commission income related to servicing foreign economic activity flows," he added.
VTB's net interest income fell by 43.8% year-on-year in the first seven months of this year to 186.4 billion roubles ($2.25 billion).
($1 = 82.8500 roubles)
(Reporting by Elena Fabrichnaya, writing by Robert Harvey; editing by Guy Faulconbridge)
VTB Bank aims to service 30% of Russian economic activity with friendly countries by 2026, doubling its previous target.
Facing a drop in net interest income, VTB Bank has turned to scaling up its income from commissions, particularly focusing on transaction and conversion net commission income.
VTB's net interest income fell by 43.8% year-on-year to 186.4 billion roubles, approximately $2.25 billion.
Initially, VTB had set a target of 15% for foreign economic activity, which has now been raised to approximately 30% for 2026.
Net commission income is a measure of the effectiveness of VTB's post-sanctions strategy to preserve its subsidiary banks and branches in friendly countries.
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