Vladimir Putin's speech:

Thank you very much, Mr Gref (German Gref, president and chairman of the board of Sberbank), friends, colleagues!

Mr Gref began his presentation on the bank's work and today's event by comparing this financial institution to a human being. He said that if Sberbank were a person – and the bank's age is respectable – Raskolnikov might have axed it out of existence. This cannot be ruled out. But for this institution, the long and the short of it is that it respectably old. In addition, we must admit that Sberbank has really made great strides in its development in recent years. I am pleased to greet everyone and congratulate Mr Gref and all Sberbank employees on the bank's 170th anniversary!

Millions of Russians see Sberbank as a symbol of reliability and stability, and there are, of course, good reasons for this trust, first among them being consistently customer-orientated the bank is; that is to say, people come first.

In the 19th century, Sberbank depositors came from all different social strata – government officials, businessmen, merchants, soldiers, members of the nobility and clergy. The bank was there at the origins of Russian credit cooperatives and, in general, the Russian financial system – a system of insurance and small business support.

And, of course, we should mention Sberbank's active role in the strategic development of our state, attracting capital and financial resources, as well as supporting the rise of Russian industry and agriculture. Suffice it to mention Peter Stolypin's agrarian reforms and the construction of railways, including the legendary Trans-Siberian Railway. In the years of Soviet industrialisation, the bank supported the development of the aviation industry and assisted in creating such major enterprises such as Magnitka (the Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Works). Sberbank's contribution to the post-war restoration of Russian's ruined economy was also considerable.

Today, Sberbank is a modern, high-performance financial institution that offers a wide range of services to its customers. Mr Gref, you have a truly one-of-a-kind network of more than 20,000 branches located not only in Russia but also abroad. Mr Gref and I just talked about this – Sberbank is now in 16 countries. Among them are such large countries as China and India, and there are several locations in Germany, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine.

Sberbank promptly responds to the demands of today. And I think it is no coincidence that in celebration of its 170th anniversary, Sberbank organised a conference that is seemingly not directly related to financial activities.

By formulating policies to meet the challenges of the day and of Russia's strategic development, Sberbank itself is changing. Sberbank's performance in the last nine months of this year speaks for itself – in this period alone, it granted loans worth more than 3.5 trillion roubles to legal entities. Last year also saw a rather large amount – 3 trillion. But in the first nine months of this year, it is already 3.5 trillion. It is important that the majority of these loans are made in areas that are crucial for Russia and for our national economy, such as infrastructure, transport, communications, agriculture, energy supply and small business.

I would like to cite some figures – they will certainly be mentioned again, but they are just so impressive. Sberbank has spent 410 billion roubles on infrastructure – double the money it spent last year, which shows that the state considers this a priority. This is transport and communications. Lending increased by 35% to 401 billion roubles to help resolve problems in the production and distribution of electricity, water and gas, while loans to small businesses rose to 630 billion roubles.

Sberbank's financing of innovative projects is also growing consistently. Over this year, it grew 16%. I was at just one of Sberbank's facilities, and I will tell you about it. But in absolute terms, at 35 billion roubles, it is still very small compared with other activities. More than $1 billion also seems like a lot, but for such financial institutions such as Sberbank the share is still insufficient. Sberbank is also supporting the Skolkovo project – it plans to build its industrial park there, which promises to be an attractive platform for innovative small businesses from all over Russia, but it will also provide substantial held to other institutions and platforms which will open in Skolkovo.

I want to emphasise that Sberbank, while remaining true to its traditions, is constantly evolving and improving its operations, and uses the most advanced technology and business standards. As I told you, we just attended the opening of Europe's largest data processing centre, which will provide a single, integrated system of operations for all branches of the financial institution, so as to expand access to banking services for both individuals and businesses, legal entities. While before people could manage deposits and loans only from their own specific branch of Sberbank, now they can do so at all offices in their region, and as the bank's management told me, as of 2014 – from any Sberbank branch in Russia. Of course, this improves not only reliability but also convenience for customers, so it will certainly lead to the expansion of business and operations on a larger scale.

I would like to note that Sberbank is now one of the leading companies in the country focused on the development and implementation of advanced technology. Its use of popular formats, such as the internet and mobile communications, and its ability to keep pace with the times and clearly predict the market situation is a testament to the strength and performance of the organisation and, most importantly, is evidence of its growth prospects. We are all well aware that technological progress plays a key role in the modern world. We saw this clearly once again just now in the presentation. All of this suggests that the first one to master advanced technology gains a competitive advantage and will be able to become a full participant in the global market, and can in a sense make the rules of the game.

This concerns not only the technical equipment of companies and enterprises, but also management to a large extent. And Sberbank is also making significant progress in this department. In particular, it is forming a network of modern customer support centres that process information, make decisions, make payments, and it is introducing performance evaluation system for employees, designed not only to build smoothest form of cooperation between the bank's management and employees but the bank's consumers as well, in order to attract the most talented, creative and knowledgeable professionals to the organisation.

I should add that now every customer can evaluate the effectiveness of the bank and its employees, and I consider giving depositors voting rights to be a very good and potentially fruitful initiative. Mr Gref just told me about how this system is being applied – it's simple enough and, I believe, effective. Today at the conference you will discuss prospects for developing new management techniques, leading to the development of solutions in a broad discussion, to find new innovative approaches, and pass them through a kind of quality filter – a filter of different attitudes, opinions, points of view. We already talked about crowd-sourcing, and I will now gladly listen to our colleague.

I would like to point out that new management approaches are also essential for the government in the development of key resolutions in the formation of long-term programmes and legislative initiatives. I must say that in practice, we in the government of the Russian Federation are beginning to implement such models more and more. I am talking about working with the personnel reserve and the creation of open peer groups. It is known that the government formulates the vast majority of bills and initiatives. In order to improve the quality of the legislative process and make it more open, we strive to bring citizens, community organisations and the business community into the discussion, development, and review of key government initiatives. This is our principled stance.

We are convinced that government resolutions that in one way or another concern the rights of people are in need of transparent public examination. Only then will they be met with understanding and support and will work effectively. In May 2011, we established a new procedure for working on key bills, and the relevant government resolution has been passed. In fact, we have created the institution of public discussion of draft laws on the internet, where citizens have the opportunity not only to view the content of the documents and make comments and suggestions, but in fact, be co-authors of these important documents.

Laws about the basics of social services, the federal contract system, and very sensitive issue of the law on amateur sports and fishing and the law on medicine have already been worked through in this way. As you know, the latter was met with controversy in the medical community, it was discussed in a vocal, very active and engaged manner, and in fact, also with the use of crowd-sourcing We started the discussion within the context of the Popular Front, but then it turned into a real public discussion.

Tens of thousands of people participated in the development of these laws. We expect that representative bodies, regions, municipalities and other institutions will actively use similar approaches for public review of legislation and government resolutions affecting the interests of the public This institution will be developed. Openness, democracy and transparency are not only mechanisms for more efficient government but also strengthen the tradition of civic responsibility and create new opportunities for developing social initiatives. They are the most important tools for feedback and tapping into energetic, caring people who want to contribute to the nation's development. This is the logic underpinning our work, friends and colleagues.

In closing, I want to again congratulate all Sberbank employees on the anniversary, and I wish you continued success. Thank you very much for your attention and patience.

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It was very interesting to hear what the guest to my right said, your comments. I think that many people should consider that when you get a huge impact out of very little money – a product that costs millions of dollars is made for $25,000 – in this case, participants in crowd-sourcing should exercise their social rights and fight for higher wages.

I wish you success. Thank you very much. It's really very interesting.