Sberbank posted a record net profit of 1.7 trillion rubles ($22 billion) in 2025, its third consecutive year of growth despite sweeping Western sanctions imposed after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The result was 7.9% higher than the bank’s 1.58 trillion rubles in profit in 2024. In 2023, Sberbank earned 1.49 trillion rubles, rebounding from a 75% plunge in 2022, when Russian lenders were cut off from global payment systems and much of their overseas business.
“Organic integration of artificial intelligence into processes and the daily lives of people has become a key driver of our growth,” Sberbank CEO Herman Gref said in a statement released Thursday.
He added that the bank would now focus on scaling AI tools across its platforms to improve efficiency and advance what he described as a “human-centric” business model.
Sberbank reported a capital adequacy ratio of 13.7%, above the 13.3% threshold that would allow it to pay dividends this year, Gref said.
Dividends from large state-controlled companies are a crucial source of revenue for Russia’s federal budget, which has come under mounting strain from war spending.
Sberbank was among the first Russian companies targeted by Western sanctions in early 2022, a move that forced it to exit European markets.
The bank said Thursday that it now serves 110.7 million retail customers and 3.5 million corporate clients in Russia and several former Soviet republics.
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