The growth of Russia’s banking sector will slow by a third according to Andrey Kostin, the chairman and CEO of the country’s second largest bank VTB.

But in an exclusive interview with RT, Kostin said long term prospects remain positive.

“Of course there is expectation that probably April will not be the easiest month for the Russian banking sector from the point of view of liquidity but I think that there is enough liquidity today available and coming from both Central Bank and Russian Treasury so we don’t expect that it will lead to any serious problem for the Russian banking sector though I think all experts are expecting that the Russian banking sector probably will slow down in its growth may be by one third of this but still the growth will be quite slow and quite substantial this year,” he said.

On Thursday VTB reported a better than expected 28% jump in net profit for 2007. It posted a net profit of $US1.5 billion under IFRS (International Financial Reporting Standards).

The bank has also announced that it is looking to borrow over $ US 5 billion abroad.