Apple Out, Face Pay In: Russia’s Sberbank Steps Up as Prez Putin Oversees Sanctions-Era Tech Shakeup
Amid unprecedented geopolitical strain and Western financial isolation, Sberbank--the largest lender in Russia and the backbone of its banking system--has posted a record net profit of 1.58 trillion rubles and rolled out one of the world’s most ambitious biometric payment systems.
This convergence of high earnings and technological assertion was at the heart of a Kremlin meeting Monday, where President Vladimir Putin met with German Gref, the CEO of Sberbank, to review the bank’s performance and its wider role in navigating Russia’s economic transformation.
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| Image Source: Official Channel @RU |
It has become a state-aligned technological engine tasked with helping Moscow stabilize an economy forced to decouple from global systems. Sanctions imposed by the US, EU and allies following the war in Ukraine have pushed Russia to develop sovereign alternatives to international finance, digital infrastructure and payments.
Sberbank, which was removed from the SWIFT network and sanctioned by Western powers in 2022, is now emerging as a case study in financial insulation—and possibly, digital overcompensation.
Putin, in his meeting with Gref, was briefed on how Sberbank has deployed over 1.2 million facial recognition payment terminals across Russia. The bank claims to be the only one globally to offer full-scale, in-house biometric transactions--where customers pay by simply looking into a camera.
Gref emphasized the system had achieved zero fraud in 18 months and that “now you don’t need a phone, card or provider; you just smile.” As of early 2025, these “Face Pay” terminals are being installed in public transport systems and urban commercial zones.
This rollout, while technologically impressive, also reveals Russia’s strategic pivot toward autonomy in consumer tech, away from Western platforms like Apple Pay and Google Pay, which withdrew from Russia after sanctions.
The discussion also touched on Sberbank’s AI ambitions. Its proprietary language model, GigaChat, released for public use in April, is designed to rival leading Western AI systems. Gref claimed it ranks among the world’s top five, though benchmarks remain opaque.
But for Russia, the strategic aim is clear: to build a sovereign digital brain that can serve local industry, reduce dependence on Western software, and position Moscow in the global AI race.
What makes this more than a domestic update is how closely Russia’s financial infrastructure is now tied to state priorities in technological independence. Sberbank is not simply reporting profits; it is delivering proofs-of-concept for an economic model designed to survive global exclusion.
The context matters. Since 2022, the Russian economy has had to adapt to capital flight, loss of Western investment, a volatile ruble and embargoes on key exports.
In this landscape, institutions like Sberbank are tasked not only with safeguarding monetary stability, but also with constructing parallel ecosystems--from biometric retail tech to domestic credit systems to alternative currencies for trade with China, Iran, and other non-Western partners.
The tone from the Kremlin was unmistakably bullish. Putin thanked Gref for investing in the “right cross-cutting technologies” and said Sberbank’s success has helped Russia not only “keep pace with competitors but sometimes move ahead of the curve.”
But the wider picture remains complicated. Gref admitted that mortgage lending remains unprofitable, despite state subsidies, and that small business credit is growing only modestly. High deposit rates--still attractive to Russians wary of inflation--are being driven not by vibrant lending activity but by a slowdown in the demand for credit.
What makes Sberbank’s story worth watching for observers in the US, UK or France is that it offers a lens into how major economies under sanctions may look in the near future: financially inward, technologically self-reliant, and structurally redesigned around state-aligned digital platforms.