On February 9, Tinkoff Bank, the Russian digital lending giant, announced the launch of an R&D center at Skolkovo, the international tech hub under completion on the outskirts of Moscow.
The new center will focus on Blockchain-based solutions and cryptoeconomics research in order to boost the Tinkoff’s financial ecosystem. “The ideas and prototypes developed at the hub will serve not only to support Tinkoff Bank’s day-to-day operations, but also to spread such new technologies widely in the industry.”
The R&D team will also engage in developing biometric voice and face recognition technologies, aiming to “enhance customer experience, improve the security of financial transactions and augment in-store analytics.”
The use of voice recognition technology has already saved the bank around 720 hours of employee time per month, says Tinkoff.
The bank stroke its partnership with Skolkovo this past summer.
“Skolkovo has all the necessary conditions and infrastructure to develop truly breakthrough projects. New teams for these projects are currently participating in the Tinkoff’s acceleration program and working as part of the bank’s real-life projects,” commented Vyacheslav Tsyganov, VP and CIO at Tinkoff.
“They will work independently at Skolkovo within the next few weeks,” he added.
Taking mortgages online
Tinkoff Bank has also announced a joint-venture agreement with the Agency for Housing Mortgage Lending (AHML) to offer mortgage lending on a special electronic platform.
This initiative aims to address the needs of “an increasing number of Russians who are looking to use mortgage loans to buy a home,” according to Tinkoff Bank.
The new platform is designed to attract mortgage customers using existing Tinkoff Bank online services. According to Tinkoff Bank, it will support automated mortgage approvals based on AHML standards, execute loan documentation and issue mortgage loans, enable online registration of property transactions with the Federal Service for State Registration, Cadastre and Cartography, and can be integrated with the systems of other Russian mortgage lenders. The platform will also borrowers to manage their mortgage loans, including making monthly payments.
$4 billion capitalization
Tinkoff Group, also known as TCS group, was established as an online-only credit card issuer by serial entrepreneur Oleg Tinkov in 2006. The group’s key business is Tinkoff Bank, which presents itself as “Russia’s first and only direct bank offering both own brand and partner retail financial services” via its online platform. The product range includes daily banking, savings, investments, loyalty programmes, travel services, SME services, mortgage platform, and insurance.
With a market share of 11.6% and almost seven million customers across Russia, the bank was reportedly the second largest player in the Russian credit card market as of October 1, 2016. Tinkoff saw its net profit surge by 75% y-o-y in the third quarter of 2017.
The group also includes a mobile virtual operator network (Tinkoff Mobile) and an insurance business (Tinkoff Insurance), as well as a network of development hubs across Russia (Tinkoff Software DC).
Listed on the London Stock Exchange (TCS LI) since October 2013, the group saw its capitalization surpass $4 billion in late January 2018. Its value thus exceeds that of Virgin Money PLC’s or Greece’s Alpha Bank, the company’s press service told East-West Digital News.
Source: Tinkoff
