Russia’s retail banking giant Sberbank has been named the strongest banking brand in the world, according to Brand Finance, a leading independent branded business valuation and strategy consultancy, the bank said a press release on January 22.

“Sberbank named strongest banking brand in the world by Brand Finance. This is the first time a Russian banking brand has been recognised as the strongest in the world,” the bank said.

However, a check of Brand Finance’s website and the list of the top 500 global brands failed to confirm the claim.

Sberbank was not named as leader in any of the categories. A check of the complete rankings places Sberbank at a still very respectable 139 in the global list of strongest brands, down from 129 last year.

The highest placed bank in the global ranking is actually Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, which is ranked eighth in this year’s survey, up from 10 last year. And in second place is another Chinese bank, Bank of China (19). The top US bank is Wells Fargo (30). In all there are a total of 16 other banks ahead of Sberbank in the global brand list, according to Brand Finance.

Even if the brand is not quite so powerful as the bank claims, it remains one of the top brands in Russia and has been since the collapse of the Soviet Union, holding roughly half of all Russia’s deposits.

“Sberbank has long been a household name in Russia and holds about half of the country’s savings deposits, however, this is the first time a Russian bank has topped the global list of best brands,” the bank said in its press release. “The brand strength index increased from 90 to 93, which meant Sberbank took 1st place among banks and 2nd place in the overall Brand Finance 500 ranking.”

The brand ranking from the company puts Amazon as the global number one most valuable brand worth $187bn followed by Apple worth $153bn. It seems someone in the Sberbank press department rushed out the press release or was not paying attention to the table.

Nevertheless, Sberbank’s brand value grew to an impressive $12.4bn from $11.6bn in 2018, taking the bank into the top 20 biggest global banks. Its Central European subsidiary Sberbank Europe, technically a separate bank from the parent, has been named a “systemically important bank” and it is one of the best run and most profitable banks in all of Europe, as well as an investors’ darling.

“As in the previous year, the bank was once again recognised as the strongest brand in Russia and Central and Eastern Europe,” Sberbank said, something that is almost certainly true.

CEO and chairman of the executive board of Sberbank Herman Gref said: “For the first time ever a Russian banking brand has topped Brand Finance’s leading global rating. The fact that the professional community thinks so highly of us is the well-deserved result of a team that every day works to make Sberbank one of the world’s best tech companies. Many innovations and technologies have been developed and implemented at Sberbank. Now they are being used by banks and companies all over the world. Global leadership also shows that we have chosen the right strategy – a strategy focused on technological leadership and developing an ecosystem of products and services to provide clients with a complete range of financial and nonfinancial services for all situations in life.”

As an aside, the very strongest brand in Russia is "Putin" according to a survey by the Landor PR agency conducted a few years ago.

Top global bank brands 2019
Agricultural Bank of China	16
Bank of China	19
Wells Fargo	30
Bank of America	34
Citi	36
Chase	37
China Merchants Bank	70
HSBC	82
JP Morgan	83
Santander	96
RBC	97
BNP Paribas	115
Bank of Communications	117
Capital One	118
Shanghai Pudong Development Bank	130
China CITIC Bank	135
Sberbank	139
Source: Brand Finance