The comprehensive income of banks was nearly one trillion rubles for the reporting period. However, one cannot call the picture of the previous year's results absolutely cloudless. Such factors as growth retardation in EU countries, instability in the world financial markets, deceleration of growth of the Russian economy and an increasingly competitive climate in the domestic banking market, generated in 2012 and continue generating a negative impact on the development of banking business. Therefore as experts note, a lot of things depend on rationalism of strategies of banks, on quality of their risk management systems and on the ability of financial and credit organizations to increase availability and quality of rendered services, including using advanced technologies.

RETAIL BUSINESS AS A DRIVER OF GROWTH

All experts interviewed by NBJ noted that 2012 had become a year of consumer crediting. This direction of banking business was developing the most dynamically, and the share of such credits in total loan portfolios of banks increased considerably. This was promoted by a number of factors: growth of the population's income in 2012, connected with the increase of salaries in statefinanced organizations, decrease of crisis expectations, increase of people's interest in acquisition of long-use goods. According to specialists, other types of retail bank crediting, such as mortgages, car loans were also developing rather dynamically.

Strange enough it may seem, but bankers seldom consider the retail cblossomingda positive tendency. Analysts specify that the retail crediting growth was observed amid growth retardation and reduction of corporate crediting. Toughening of requirements to reservation for separate types of corporate credits played its role. Moreover rates on such credits remain at a rather high level, which prevents entities from attracting of desirable or at least necessary credit volumes.

Nevertheless all bankers consider 2012 rather a positive period both from the point of view of various indicators of banking sector, and from the point of view of the general economic situation in the country. "Banks finally obtained an opportunity to work in a normal mode, without any strong fluctuations in 2012. In my opinion, it has become the main factor of sector growth. It should be noted that the bank system showed quite normal profit ratios in 2012. It did not seem possible to achieve such results after the crisis of 2009-2010. 2011 became a transitional year, and the situation was normalized in 2012,"- Pavel Morozov, vice-president of the Stroycredit Bank, thinks.

COMPETITIVE STRUGGLE AND IT

So, "life became better, life became more cheerful" at least in some aspects. But normalization of economic situation and lack of strong shocks, both within the country, and from the outside, did not help to uniform conditions in the banking market. Experts note that the competitive struggle between the financial and credit organizations remains very tough. Every year it becomes more obvious that this struggle will be won by the one who will be able to offer its customers a high-quality service at a reasonable price. Consequently, the role of IT in banking sector increases. The fact that IT is not an addition, but an integral part of banking business, does not raise doubts any more.

"Demand for technological effectiveness of banking services from the population will increase. Development of various bank web-applications (in particular, for mobile devices) becomes demanded now, and those credit organizations which will be able to adapt to clients' requirements better, will get a powerful competitive advantage," -Stanislav Bozhenko, head of department of credit portfolio management of the Bank of Moscow, thinks.

"All banks will expand possibilities of mobile banking, replace outdated technologies of Internet bank; automation of internal processes in risk management, reporting systems and analytics will increase as well,"- Maria Subbotina, main strategist on asset and liability management of the Promsvyazbank Treasury, predicts.

"We suppose that the tendency of technological equipment improvement is a time effect which will strengthen every year. We think that the necessary condition for preserving and developing of competitive positions of a bank is increase of equipment level, taking into account a significant amount of the credit organizations in Russia and the high level of competition between them respectively," - Olga Lapshina, debt market analysis manager of the Bank Saint Petersburg, summarizes.

Marina Karapetyan, analyst of Alfa Bank, holds to less optimistic estimate. "Basically, the tendency for increase of a level of technological equipment probably will not take place in future because the market is saturated, "- she states. However, according to the specialist, IT systems will promote credits granting and help in other areas of banking sector as before.

Thus experts emphasize that, of course, it is necessary to pay for the right to use advancedMT solutions in the daily work, and the price is rather expensive. However competitive struggle forces banks to refuse cost saving in favor of IT.

WILL THE BRANCHES DIE ?

Development of IT element of banks was so rapid in 2012 that one could often hear statements about "dying" of branches due to use of remote service channels by people because of their financial awareness growth. However, experts note that it didn't occur. Even though banks do not increase their branch networks greatly as they did during the precrisis period, their attention to quality of work of their branch networks remains the same. According to analysts this tendency, as well as the IT strengthening tendency will continue in 2013.

"According to the Central Bank of the Russian Federation the number of banks branches continued to increase in 2012 and grew by 1687 units during the year. The most interesting thing here is in the growth structure: the number of additional, lending and cash servicing and operational offices increased while the number of branches, representative offices and operational cash desks decreased. Thus, banks still pay attention to expansion of their branch network, however they minimize costs and choose cheaper forms of the organization,"- Olga Lapshina (Bank Saint Petersburg) notes.

"The branch network will remain till it is demanded by our clients. First, it is important for face-to-face contact with a client. Secondly, some things (for example, signing of a contract) require physical presence of a person (the signature must be on the document) according to the legislation of the Russian Federation. It is impossible to show your passport by phone so far. Thirdly, those credit organizations which find a "mix" - a compromise between classical and remote service will win on this battlefield," - Bulad Subanov, vice-chairman of the board of OTP Bank said, and then added. "There are no banks which provide only network service in the market already, and in the near future there will no banks providing only remote service. I would like to mention the experience of the Apple company which is perfectly technologically advanced and, for sure, capable "to move" to the remote customer service only. Furthermore in every large city Apple has its sales center where its clients can test equipment and decide upon whether to buy it or not. Though this example is not from the financial sphere, it visualizes the necessity of face-to-face contact with a client. I think the same will happen with banking networks which will hardly disappear in the near future. "

Roman Morozov (Stroycredit Bank) agrees with Bulad Subanov. "Remote banking service will grow. However not all issues can be resolved remotely and not all clients are ready to it. A wide branch network is a significant advantage for every bank. At the same time credit organizations will pay more attention to an estimation efficiency of every point, "- the expert is sure.

Ravil Nigmatov, director of the strategic and organizational department of Absolut Bank agrees with his colleagues. "A branch network is certainly important. Increase in number of branches was observed in St. Petersburg, the Republics of Dagestan, Ingushetia, Altai, the Chechen Republic, the Vologda, Ivanovo and Murmansk regions in 2012. There was some decrease in number of branches or their quantity did not change in other regions. Regions with high rates of economic development usually have higher priority in case of network building-up," - the specialist explained.

According to experts, branches will be important and demanded owing to other reasons as well. Stanislav Bozhenko (Bank of Moscow) states that it is possible to implement rather successful projects of retail services via remote channels. But the matter is not that simple with corporate clients: this approach is not always viable. Corporate clients often need face-to-face contact with the bank specialists, because they deal with other amounts and questions of risks assessment, collateral quality, considerations of business plans are much more complex.

Marina Karapetyan's (Alfa Bank) opinion sounds a little resonant against the general conclusion (the branches will exist). According to her observations, a branch network took second billing for banks now. "A process of a branch network replacement by remote services is going on, though slowly, " - the specialist summarizes. However while it goes on, branches will perform their function.