Russia’s VTB Group is planning limited staff reductions as part of a broader effort to improve efficiency, the bank’s first deputy CEO and CFO Dmitry Pyanov said Friday.
The bank aims to lower its cost-to-income ratio (CIR) between 2025 and 2026, Reuters quoted Pyanov as telling reporters.
The ratio rose to 65.7% in October 2025 from 52.2% a year earlier, while the figure for the first 10 months of 2025 stood at 48.1% compared with 42.9% a year before.
He said cuts would be “targeted” and limited to specific areas, mainly the operations and technology division and parts of the retail business.
Reductions in retail will focus on headquarters roles, he added.
“There is no talk of mass layoffs,” he said. “This is about optimization aimed at increasing efficiency, primarily in these areas.”
VTB has said it intends to overhaul its loss-making retail division in 2026, shifting toward customer-specific products, digital services and partnership projects.
Pyanov described the scale of the reduction as “a few percent” of total staff.
VTB employed around 112,000 people in 2024, according to its financial statements.
The announcement comes as Russia’s largest lender, Sberbank, is also restructuring. CEO German Gref said last week that Sberbank will lay off 20% of its employees by the end of 2025 after using artificial intelligence systems to detect “inefficient” workers.
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