VTB increased the volume of purchases from SMEs by almost a third

By the end of 2025, VTB's purchases from small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) reached 173.76 billion rubles, the bank's press service reported. This is 27% higher than in the previous year.

"Increasing cooperation with small and medium-sized enterprises contributes not only to the diversification of procurement, but also to the support of economic activity in the country. In 2025, VTB Bank achieved a 32.2% share of purchases from SMEs. This figure hides 23,139 concluded contracts. The volume of scheduled payments increased by 30% and amounted to 111.41 billion rubles. The largest volume of purchases accounted for customer acquisition services, software development and modernization, rental of premises and ATM locations, and IT equipment. We intend to further expand cooperation with the SME segment, while maintaining comfortable conditions for suppliers to enter procurement procedures," said Natalia Surova, Head of VTB's Finance Department.

VTB is actively working to improve procurement efficiency. The main catalyst for this process is digitalization and the introduction of artificial intelligence. According to VTB experts, AI is already showing qualitative effects, primarily related to a significant acceleration of information retrieval.

"One of our AI advisors acts as a knowledge base guide on procurement documentation and related regulatory documents. It effectively identifies errors, discrepancies, and incompleteness in disparate related documents. AI can work with large amounts of data, find hidden relationships, and use fuzzy logic where previously it relied solely on the expertise of experts. This is especially important when determining the reference market price of a product or service. All this does not replace the expertise of a specialist, but strengthens it, helps to see more and work faster," Natalia Surova noted.

In 2025, at the SPIEF, the bank received an award for loyalty to SMEs, which is awarded to customers who support entrepreneurs in expanding their sales markets.

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