Sberbank Rossii : participates in discussion of the State Programme to Develop Russia’s Digital Economy

April27, 2017,Moscow - Teymur Shternlib, Senior Vice President of Sberbank, Head of Sberbank Digital, took part in the discussion of the State Programme to Develop Russia's Digital Economy. The discussion was organised by the New Economic School with support from the Russian Government and took place at the international conference 'Challenges of the Digital Economy in Russia. Regional Specifics and International Experience'.

Arkady Dvorkovich, Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation; German Klimenko, Advisor to the Russian President on the Internet; Alexei Kozyrev, Deputy Minister of Communications and Mass Media of the Russian Federation; Shlomo Weber, Rector, Professor, New Economic School, and representatives of leading Russian and international corporations spoke at the event.

The discussion was held to help develop Russia's digital economy, a goal declared by the Russian President in his December 2016 Address to the Federal Assembly.

In his speech, Arkady Dvorkovich commented that the draft project of the State Programme to Develop the Digital Economy will take in account the outcome of the conference and other discussions regarding this topic. 'The draft programme is divided into sectors. But to better understand our goal, we need to look at other issues too,' he said. In particular, focus should be placed on areas that already exist but require rapid development, those that have been established but are not widespread, and those that are still in development. 'This shouldn't be a programme that is limited to a single ministry of the government. It must be a programme for society in general,' he said.

Teymur Shternlib commented: 'We are studying the entire world, searching for new and interesting business models and companies and investing in them. We're making them part of Sberbank's ecosystem. Areas of particular interest include FinTech, eHealth, education, cloud technologies, smart cities… Obviously Russian start-ups are our number one priority, and we work with Russian funds and accelerators as part of our efforts to find the best of the best. If you are talented, organised and put out a high-quality product, then we want your work to become part of Sberbank's ecosystem.'

The discussion looked at key aspects of establishing and growing the digital economy, examples of how it is developing in Russia, and global experience of deploying digital technology.

Stepan Kuznetsov, Managing Director of Sberbank Digital, gave a presentation on a joint project - a digital ecosystem for exchanging information using blockchain - which involved Russia's Federal Anti-Monopoly Service and the bank's clients.