PAO Sberbank of Russia wants to convince e-commerce companies to open collection points for customers in its branches, Kommersant reported Oct. 12, citing sources.

The state-controlled lender believes the initiative could help fill 150,000 square meters of vacant office space and improve financial results of smaller branches, the newspaper said.

Sberbank has already launched a pilot project with Russian logistics company PickPoint, whose automated parcel lockers are available in several branches. The lender also recently completed a deal with Russian technology company Yandex NV to form an e-commerce joint venture, and Yandex COO Greg Abovsky had said that the company saw the possibility of using branches as collection points for orders, Kommersant said.

At the end of 2017, Sberbank's network included 14,300 outlets. The opening of 14,000 automated online order collection points in Sberbank's branches could bring the lender income of more than 51 billion Russian rubles per year, under the assumption that each of handles 100 parcels per day, according to Kommersant.

As of Oct. 12, US$1 was equivalent to 66.21 Russian rubles.