OREANDA-NEWS. Sberbank Direct won several prizes at the Zins-Award 2016 for being one of the best financial services in the German market for deposits and savings accounts.

Sberbank Direct was launched by Sberbank in Germany in 2014 and offers online banking services.

"Sberbank Direct has once again proved how competitive it is on the German market," Svetlana Sagaydak, Deputy Chairman of Sberbank's Executive Board said. "Sberbank will continue developing its digital business in Europe: by the end of this year, Sberbank Direct will have moved to a new IT platform to strengthen its position as the best digital service in Germany," she added.

Zins-Award is one of the most important contests in the area of direct banking in Germany. Banks are assessed on service quality, the usefulness and availability of their products, and their ease of use. Financial institutions are ranked by FMH rating agency and the German Institute for Service Quality.

Sberbank Direct is a member of Sberbank Europe AG. Sberbank Europe operates in 10 countries in Central and Eastern Europe: Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia, Serbia, and Ukraine. The headquarters of Sberbank Europe AG are in Vienna, Austria. The bank has 280 branches with 5,079 employees (as of December 31, 2015).

Sberbank is Russia’s largest bank and a leading global financial institution. Sberbank holds almost one third of aggregate Russian banking sector assets, it is the key lender to the national economy and the biggest deposit taker in Russia. The Central Bank of the Russian Federation is the founder and principal shareholder of Sberbank owning 50 % of the Bank's authorized capital plus one voting share, with the remaining 50 % held by domestic and international investors. Sberbank has more than 135 million individual customers and more than 1 million corporate clients in 22 countries. Sberbank has the largest distribution network in Russia with almost 17,000 branches, and its international operations include UK, US, CIS, Central and Eastern Europe, Turkey and other countries.