Penza, 29 August 2016. PenzaNews. A noticeable decrease in the number of banking institutions is stated in the Penza region. This was announced by the manager of the regional department of Volga-Vyatka main department of CBR Gennady Antonov during the meeting dedicated to the results of the region's banking sector in the first half of 2016, which took place in the regional government on Monday, August 29.

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“As of July 1 this year, the banking sector structure of the Penza region is as follows: one regional bank, eight branches of banks from other regions — in the coming days only seven will be left, 373 internal structural units (additional, operational, credit and cash offices, operating cash and mobile points of cash transactions),” he clarified.

Gennady Antonov noted that 49 Russian banks have their units in the Penza region.

“Unfortunately, our region ranks last among the regions of the Volga Federal District in the number of independent regional banks. Historically, we have only one [PJSC “Bank Kuznetsky”]. There is no other region having that little — somewhere there are two, maybe three, somewhere more,” he said.

According to Gennady Antonov, in the last 2.5 years the number of bank branches fell twice, and internal divisions — more than a quarter, which is 134 units.

“This is a trend, but I would not say unequivocally that it is negative. Reduction in the number of banking institutions is typical for the whole country, and it is a global trend. It is for quite objective reasons. This is a wave-like rise of internet banking, mobile banking, this deliberate policy of banks in terms of cost optimization and management system that allows increasing the volume of banking services, while simultaneously reducing the number of its divisions. In any case, the rate of saturation of banking services in our region is no worse than all-Russian,” the manager of the regional department of Volga-Vyatka main department of CBR explained.