Russia`s biggest lender, Sberbank says it is happy with its performance over the first half of the year and confirms it is on course to achieve its full year targets.

Sberbank deputy board chief, Andrey Donskih, spoke exclusively to RT Business – affirming the Banks FY guidance.

“Sberbank's performance has followed the plan we set out, and the results for the first half of the year meet the forecasts we made at the beginning of 2010. Looking forward, we believe we will be able to achieve our plans for the second half of the year and reach an annual profit of around $3.2 billion. Talking specifically about the loan segment, in the first quarter we saw a decrease in the lending portfolio, but from May the trend turned positive and our lending portfolio has grown. I can’t say the trend is going to continue to strengthen but there have been signs of recovery.”

RT: What about the ongoing process of privatizing the bank?

“Russia`s Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin has been saying it is time for some shares in state companies to be allocated for privatization while the markets are behaving favourably. And he also meant Sberbank should be included, when he said this. We are not talking about a controlling stake here, rather about the 8 to 9 per cent that is in the hands of Russia`s Central Bank in excess of the controlling stake of fifty plus one share. We see wider private ownership as a positive step, it would increase the volume of shares in circulation on the market.”