In what could be a world’s first for a bank, Sberbank, Russia’s leading financial institution, is to launch a neuroscience and human behavior laboratory.
Covering the fields of neurophysiology, social psychology and cognitive science, the lab will aim to make the results of its research available to Sberbank affiliates “in their everyday practice.”
“The primary objective of the laboratory is to make the communications and products of the Sberbank ecosystem completely relevant to people’s needs. We want to use the laboratory’s developments to form an emotional connection between everyone who comes into contact with the products of our ecosystem; we regard this connection as the basis of our competitiveness,” stated Lev Khasis, First Deputy Chairman of Sberbank’s Executive Board.
The Sberbank ecosystem includes not only banking and other financial activities, but also companies operating in such various fields as e-commerce, e-health, fooding and other services.
Asked to provide concrete examples of “emotional connections” involving customer relationship management or commercial products, the bank’s press service told East-West Digital News: “We understand that we need to serve our customers in different ways. Some people prefer to learn about a product in a group of other people, while others need to be given a clear algorithm and shown the benefits. We strive to understand how to properly serve customers as soon as they come to us and depending on their type of thinking.”
The press service added that they “know no analogue” of such a lab launched by a financial institution in Russia or abroad.
Sberbank did not specify when the lab will start operating, but announced it will have branches in two cities, Saint Petersburg and Moscow.
The lab’s scientific director will be Andrey Kurpatov, President of the Higher School of Methodology, who created “a system of behavioral psychotherapy and thinking methodology.”
The new laboratory comes in addition to Sberbank’s existing labs dedicated to artificial intelligence, robotics, VR and AR, and others.
