Good news for Russian investors as the services of social trading pioneer eToro, which is a platform developer and a broker in one, will soon become available to them through a joint venture partnership between the company and Russia’s biggest bank, Sberbank.
This is not the first time that the paths of these two firms meet, since in 2014 eToro raised $27 million from Sberbank and China’s Ping An to be used in the development of its social trading platform. It is now proven that that was a strategic move and that both the Russian and the Chinese bank would subsequently help eToro enter each of their home markets.
Through the joint venture just announced, the clients of Sberbank will get a unique access to the offerings of eToro, while eToro will be granted access to the massive Russian market, since the planned service will be available to customers of other banks in Russia as well.
According to the official press release put out by Sberbank: “The joint project with eToro is targeted at both professional traders and beginner investors. The project will let clients converse in a professional social network and perform trading operations involving such assets as leading companies’ stocks, currencies, commodities and indices. The joint venture’s clients will also receive additional benefits when working with eToro through Sberbank’s remote channels.”
This partnership deal comes as a natural development in the evolution of eToro, since last year it had launched a full Russian version of its next generation trading platform with integrated innovational and intuitive trading instruments. Commenting on the joint venture the CEO of eToro, Yoni Assia, said that: “We are pleased that our partnership with Sberbank will enable us to provide access to our services to the clients of the largest Russian bank, as well as to offer an alternative financial instrument and innovational platform for investments in financial markets”.
On his behalf, Herman Gref, the CEO and Chairman of the Executive Board of Sberbank, pointed out that: “The partnership between Sberbank and eToro will enable our clients to take advantage of the vast potential of eToro’s trader community,” while also adding that “the eToro platform features a simple interface, which supports trading in global financial markets, using the knowledge and experience of other traders. We are planning on establishing the joint venture which opens access for Russian clients before the end of this year.”
The importance of the deal for the entire industry and the massive potential for growth that it unleashes for eToro can be understood if one looks at the size and importance of Sberbank. It is not only Russia’s largest bank, but a leading global financial institution as well, boasting more than 135 million individual customers and more than 1 million corporate clients in 22 different countries, including a presence in the UK, the US, the CIS, Turkey and other countries in Central and Eastern Europe. With 17.000 branches it enjoys the largest distribution network in Russia, while it is not only the biggest deposit taker in the country but a key lender for the national economy as well and it holds nearly one third of the entire Russian banking sector assets.
