Vitabank

History

2022

Kirill Sokolov's refusal to buy a stake

On May 16, 2022, TAdviser received information that Kirill Sokolov refused to buy a stake in Vita Bank.

In February 2022, Kirill Sokolov announced the purchase of a 93.6% stake in Vita Bank to create various payment services on his license using the Best2pay technology platform.

After the introduction sanctions against Russia , the project of creating these services became unfeasible due to the departure from countries international and, payment systems Visa MasterCard as it was planned to actively use their infrastructure and solutions. In this regard, Kirill Sokolov refused to acquire a controlling stake in Vita Bank and the development fintech of projects.

My refusal to buy a stake in Vita Bank is due to the departure from Russia of international payment systems, in particular, MasterCard, which played an important role in plans to create fintech services. For May 2022, I am focused on creating my own investment fund. The fund will specialize in investments in dividend companies, from the capital of which foreign players and entrepreneurs leaving abroad, as well as in companies that are unable to develop due to other circumstances. All my professional experience is M&A and integration projects. Given that I managed to profitably realize my assets in the banking sector before the start of a period of turbulence, the moment has come for entering new projects. Many investors have already shown interest in the fund - Kirill Sokolov commented on his decision.

Kirill Sokolov bought Vita Bank

The former deputy chairman of the board Sovcombank Kirill Sokolov bought Vita Bank to create a fintech company on his license. Sovcombank will become one of the investors in the project, the press service of the credit institution said in February 2022.

In the development of solutions for the new fintech startup (its name is not reported by February 22, 2022), the license of Vita Bank and the solutions of the Best2Pay platform owned by Sovcombank will be used. According to Kirill Sokolov, Sovcombank will retain a large stake, but the new bank will be completely independent, "since the correct financial infrastructure project... should not be controlled by one, even by a large partner. " Sokolov added that other investors, including competitors of Sovcombank, will be involved in the future project.

Kirill Sokolov bought Vita Bank

I hatched this idea for a long time, since I clearly understood that in a universal bank, projects for other organizations face competition for resources and other conflicts of interest. We found with the shareholders of Sovcombank an ideal partnership formula, "said the former deputy chairman of the board of Sovcombank.

Part of the Best2pay products will be transferred to its own banking license, the founder of the company Kirill Radchenko will oversee this process. According to him, the service will continue to provide services to companies, and to build the project it will add credit, brokerage products and services for small businesses.

The main shareholder of Vita Bank, registered in St. Petersburg, with a share of 93.6% at the end of January 2022 was Alexander Aladushkin's Kirov Leningrad Bakery. Another 1.6% of the bank belonged to Concept Finance Natalia Voloshko, 4.8% to minority shareholders, follows from the materials of the credit institution.^[1]

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