At the recent "Finopolis" fintech forum, Russia's two major financial institutions, Alpha Bank and VTB Bank, signed a cooperation agreement to jointly launch a pilot for an innovative "multibanking" service. This service is designed to allow corporate clients to view and manage all their account information with both banks through a single, unified interface.

Core Service: Unified View and Efficient Management

The pilot project initially targets large corporate clients. Participating businesses will be able to see an overview of their account balances at both banks in real-time through a single platform (either Alpha Bank's or VTB's electronic banking system). The service is built on Open Banking technology, claimed to ensure a high level of information security and data confidentiality.

This solution aims to address the long-standing challenges for corporate clients, especially large groups holding accounts with multiple banks simultaneously. It will enable companies to:

• Centrally manage accounts for all companies within a group in a single window.

• Increase the transparency of fund flows for better monitoring.

• Enhance the efficiency of treasury processes, particularly liquidity management and payment calendar planning.
  

Official Views: A Customer-Centric Strategic Step

Alexander Gorinov, Head of Development and Transactional Product Sales Support at Alpha Bank, commented: "Integration with VTB allows businesses to save significant time and resources, eliminating the need to request statements from each bank separately. For large corporate clients, this is a major step in meeting their need for centralized liquidity management. We believe it's significant progress when leading banks join forces to create value for the client."

Igor Ostreiko, Head of the Transaction Business Department at VTB, highlighted the service's future development: "Most Russian companies are clients of several banks. The task of the 'multibank' service is to simplify their financial management. We plan to actively expand its functionality. In the future, users will be able to manage accounts across different banks in real-time using the 'VTB Business-Online' system and mobile application. The full version of the service is expected to launch before the end of 2025."

The Future Vision of Open Banking

This collaboration represents not just the launch of a single service but a practical implementation of the Open Banking concept by both banks.

Damir Battulin, Director of Digital Channel Development at Alpha Bank, noted that participation in this pilot is a key part of the strategy to create a convenient, integrated financial environment, stating that the future lies in allowing clients to choose how they manage their assets.

Alexey Okhorzin, Head of the Retail Business Products Department at VTB, added from a user's perspective: "Open Banking is very convenient for customers. They can manage all their financial products within a single banking App they prefer. This will be a welcome feature for the over 28 million users of 'VTB Online'."

It is reported that the rollout of such Open API systems will be carried out in phases, starting with connecting major banks, and gradually expanding to insurance companies, brokers, and other financial institutions.