Global investment firm Finstar Financial Group founded and chaired by businessman Oleg Boyko has just acquired St. Petersburg’s PJSC BANK SIAB (Bank SIAB) for an undisclosed sum.
Through Bank SIAB, Finstar plans to develop four new business areas. These include lending to individuals – at consumer points of sale, in online stores, auto loans and similar; credit to SMEs; marketplace providing loan services for young people, mostly without a credit history; and a brand new platform on which investors can invest in various loan portfolios. The technical base for credit products already developed by Finstar will allow the Bank to reach a new level of quality of services provided, which will allow customers, including SMEs, to use the extensive mobile ecosystem being developed by the holding, combining several mobile banking services.
By taking over Bank SIAB, Finstar will be able to scale up its created IT platforms and start selling services directly to clients. It’s planned to make good use of the well-known St. Petersburg bank’s experience in creating various payment services both for individuals, offering debit and credit cards, an ability to pay through a dedicated app as well as other financial services. For retailers, they will be offering desirable payment and data infrastructures.
“Thanks to the technological base already existing at Finstar, we will be able to offer our clients – individuals, as well as SMEs – advanced banking technologies that meet the needs of the market,” said Galina Vanchikova, President and Chairman of the Board of Bank SIAB. She added: “In the general concept of medium-term development, Bank SIAB will continue to be a bank that provides a full range of financial services to enterprises and individuals.”
Oleg Boyko was keen to explain the wide benefits to consumers at every level of society. “The financial sector is the largest blue ocean in the world – approximately 2.5 billion people experience problems with banking services or are excluded from this sector in principle,” he said. “In this digital age, when the speed of provision of services, as well as the convenience and safety of their use are becoming a main factor in the online borrowing process, it’s necessary to invest in the development of the areas of payment systems, data processing, credit risk and online marketing.”
Mr Boyko continued: “We chose Bank SIAB for two main reasons. Firstly, we were satisfied with the volume of the business: this is a relatively small institution, in which we will not have to significantly rebuild work processes. Secondly, the presence of a stable customer base played an important part in our decision, and we can now start working with new digital financial products. In the next three years, we plan to invest about $50 million of our own capital in this project and are confident in attracting money from external investors.”
About Finstar Financial Group
Finstar Financial Group is an international private equity and investment advisory firm engaged in lending to individuals using digital technologies. The firm was founded by a group of investors led by Oleg Boyko in 1996 and currently has a diversified investment portfolio in more than 30 countries. The investment group is largely focused on the fintech sector and has had successful projects in banking and financial services, IT, real estate, FMCG retail, media and entertainment.
In 2012, Finstar focused on promising projects in the digital financial services sector. Later, it was announced that the company plans to invest about $150 million in the development of portfolio companies and in companies in the field of payment systems, marketing, data processing and credit risk management, engaged in the provision of financial services in Europe, Asia, the CIS countries and Russia. The main audience, for which the services of the companies included in the holding are designed, are people excluded from the traditional banking sector (the underbanked) and consumers who do not receive high-quality banking services (the underserved).
About Bank SIAB
Founded in 1995 Bank SIAB provides a full range of banking services for companies and individuals in St. Petersburg and the Leningrad region. The bank positions itself as universal. The bank’s strategy is based on a customer-oriented business model with broad specialisation. Its priorities in work ethics have focused on the preservation, strengthening and development of interaction with customers, improving the quality of services provided, a highly-developed infrastructure of customer service. The business structure includes three areas: retail, corporate and investment.
