Residents and legal entities of the Crimean federal district have opened more than 90,000 accounts at the region's branches of Russian and Ukrainian banks, Crimean Deputy Finance Minister Natalya Fedchun has said, adding that Russian banks have already set up 255 branches on the peninsula.
“On the whole, 207 [Russian] bank branches are operating in the Republic of Crimea, and another 48 in Sevastopol,” Fedchun told Interfax on May 2.
Crimea encountered a shortage on the banking services market in March, when most Ukrainian banks shut down their operations in the region.
6 months ago, when the Republic of Crimea and Sevastopol were still part of Ukraine, 77 banks operated in the region, which had approximately 1,800 bank branches, she said.
“But it took the Ukrainian network more than 20 years to develop, and far from all branches were offering the whole range of services. Most of them did not even service bank accounts, but only accepted payments and exchanged foreign currency. There were even branches that were visited by only 20-30 clients a day. Of course, the relevance of each branch has grown significantly today,” Fedchun said.
