Banker-brewer Tinkov told why he didn’t need a smoothie with his approach: businessman’s statements and expert comments

In the nine years of its existence, Tinkoff Bank has become one of the leading players in the financial market. The bank is in the top 4 Russian banks in terms of the credit card portfolio. According to Oleg Tinkov, this is one of the largest fully online banks in the world.

Few people manage to repeat the success of Tinkoff Bank, despite the fact that recently the largest banks have been investing huge amounts in remote services.

“Startups attract investment, rent a new office, drink a smoothie in co-working, poke their own tablets. Nobody thinks about profit and economic feasibility. Investment money corrupts. "
In March 2015, Oleg Tinkov made such a statement in an interview with The Secret of the Firm.
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Now Mr. Tinkov told Digital Russia about how Tinkoff Bank was successful in its development strategy for the next 5 years.

"Megamind" leads the most interesting statements of the entrepreneur.

From brewer to bankers

I have always dreamed of opening my own bank and started to implement the idea closely in 2005, after the sale of my next business, the beer company, to InBev.

The experienced bankers at that time, with whom I shared my concept of a fully remote bank, reacted to it with a fair amount of skepticism, saying that the business is complex and without experience in the banking sector I will fail.
At my request, BCG conducted a special study that confirmed the viability of such a business in the Russian context. True, the study did not give answers to questions about the way the project was implemented and its target audience, but we already dealt with this directly during the implementation.

At the start of the project in 2007, our investor was Goldman Sachs , in 2008 it was joined by Vostok Nafta, and in 2012 by Baring Vostok and Horizon Capital . At the end of 2013, we had a successful IPO on the London Stock Exchange and attracted more than $ 1 billion in investments.

Non-standard approach

When recruiting a team, I preferred those who had nothing to do with the banking sector, knew how to think outside the box and could implement a completely new business model for Russia. In other words, he tried not to take bankers into the team.
And of course, we have invested heavily in priority areas: for example, only $ 20 million was spent on IT infrastructure, purchasing the best systems at that time in the market.

In developing the concept of the bank, we took inspiration from our Western counterparts, but having begun its practical implementation, we began to apply exclusively to our own ideas and solutions. In Russia, we have developed our own peculiarities in the regulation of the banking sector; therefore, we have developed the tools for implementing a fully remote business model from scratch.

Work with clients: problems and solutions

At first, we noticed that people who used to stand in line for hours to get advice on the simplest question have a psychological barrier: it’s hard to believe that all banking operations can be done remotely - through a call center or independently using the Internet bank.

We have created a network of “smart” representatives: more than 1 thousand representatives of the bank deliver our banking products to almost any part of the country the next day after receiving the application on the website. These are not just couriers, but specialists of the bank who have undergone special training, who can give the client full consultation on the spot. In Russia, there is still a low level of penetration of banking services, and this model provides access to innovative banking services to residents of even the most distant cities.

Introduction of innovations

Tinkoff Bank was the first Russian bank back in 2014 to introduce customer identification technology by voice for all jobs in its call center. Prior to this, only a few British banks used this technology, and as a rule, only for VIP clients.

The technology allows the client to save time, recognizing him by voice in the first few seconds, eliminates the need to memorize a huge amount of code words and passwords and provides an additional level of security, which is especially important given the great risk of confidential data leakage in the era of social engineering.

At the same time, we have a large team of mobile application developers who create products not only for bank customers, but also for a wider audience.

The role of Oleg Tinkov in the company

I believe that the development of services and products should be addressed by those who really use them, in our case - talented enthusiastic youth. I am the oldest in the company and just try not to stop them from doing what they do well.

I do not manage the bank at the operational level, but I am engaged in a development strategy, but as a shareholder I am actively interested in the smallest details of the processes, up to the design of one of thousands of icons for a specific section in our Internet bank.

Five years strategy

Our strategy for the next five years is to become a financial "supermarket", an analogue of Amazon in the financial sector, where not only our own products, but also our partners' products will be available to the client. Portal Tinkoff.ru will become a single entry point for anyone who needs a financial service: the client will only need basic information about his needs, and we will select the best offer on the market based on his wishes and possibilities. Thus, we will simplify life and customers, helping them find the best product, and partners, taking the job of attracting customers.

Flamp CEO Evgeny Vasilkov commented on Tinkov’s strategy statement: