I was applying for mortgage loan and could share my experience with different banks. I applied to five banks: DOM.RF, Alfabank, Sberbank, VTB and Raiffaisen.
Sberbank is really awful. It’s the second time they disappointed me. Last time they failed to send a debit card from one office to another and I spent more than two hours waiting in lines and calling them. This time they refused even to consider my application, I’m receiving a salary in this bank but they are the only bank who demanded salary confirmation and employment status. Are you kidding? Open your database and take a look at who is paying me! All other banks were fine with my passport and retirement ID (SNILS). Sber bought so much business over the last couple of years, but could not even handle their financial field. Of cause I’ll change the bank to receive a salary in a short time.
Alfabank, DOM.RF and Reiffaisen offers very similar rates for mortgage and they all have nice managers and I was very happy dealing with them
But VTB surprised me most. They have a mutual program with PIK developer company and offered me 0,01 percent for the first year. Moreover, they approved rate 6,5 for the consecutive years but then rates decreased a little bit to 6,1 percent and they applied documents for the new rate on my behalf. More than that, the manager negotiated with the insurance company to cut their premium by 50% because I requested a rate from another company.
After striking the deal with VTB, I realized that I have OMS health insurance in VTB, they are my major broker now, because they have extremely low fees (0,06%) with now monthly payments for maintaining an account, And now I’ve got a mortgage there. To be honest, their mobile bank application looks very raw, and you need to play a couple of minutes to get it to work, but obviously, this bank is trying hard to get new clients and it’s good to have such competition among bit players.