(AFP) – Nov 11, 2009

MOSCOW — Sberbank, Russia's largest retail bank, plans to shed up to 67,000 jobs, or a quarter of its workforce, by 2014, a senior company official said on Wednesday.

"Over five years, we plan a 20-25 percent cut in personnel. We confirm that this task is realistic," Denis Bugrov, a vice president and member of the bank's management board, was quoted as saying by Interfax news agency.

Bugrov said that by the end of this year, Sberbank would cut its workforce by 10 percent, or nearly 27,000 people. The bank had a total of 267,000 employees at the beginning of this year.

The cuts are part of a modernisation plan to transform the state-controlled lender, which has more than 20,000 branches across Russia and succeeded a Soviet-era retail banking monopoly, into a Western-style bank.

Unlike many other banks worldwide, Sberbank has yet to see profits recover and expects bad loans to peak next year.

In its latest Russia report, the World Bank on Tuesday predicted Russia's economy would shrink 8.7 percent in 2009 and forecast only a very weak recovery in 2010.

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