State-owned Sberbank’s software contracts under scrutiny
As of this morning, the EU confirmed it had “agreed to exclude key Russian banks from the SWIFT system, the world’s dominant financial messaging system. “This measure will stop these banks from conducting their financial transactions worldwide in a fast and efficient manner. Today’s decision has been closely coordinated with the EU’s international partners, such as the United States and the United Kingdom,” the EU said in a statement. Russian majority state-owned Sberbank has so far managed to hold onto vital HR and CRM systems contracts with the world’s largest software companies, despite political outcry from the firms’ home nations over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. As for the bank’s software contracts, in 2018, SAP said Sberbank had deployed its SuccessFactors HR software to a workforce of 230,000 employees, the largest completed cloud project in Russia, according to the biggest software company in the EU. Meanwhile, US enterprise software giant Oracle supports 170,000 users of Sberbank’s Siebel CRM system. The $40bn-revenue US tech giant has refused in recent days to respond to The Register’s questions over whether it continues to support the implementation following Russia’s military aggression in Ukraine. US president Joe Biden denounced the “unprovoked and unjustified attack by Russian military forces” on Ukraine last week. The US government has placed restrictions on Russian banks – including Sberbank, which represents around 30 per cent of the Russian retail banking sector – such as preventing it from conducting transactions through the US system. The sanctions are designed to restrict Sberbank’s access to US dollar transactions. The US has also restricted exports of semiconductors, encryption software, lasers, and aviation equipment to Russia. Companies including AMD, Intel, TSMC, Dell, HP, Lenovo and HPE are complying with the export controls. HPE CEO Antonio Neri said during its Q4 earnings call yesterday: “From the business perspective, we have suspended all shipments into Russia at this time and we’ll continue to adhere to all relevant sanctions and export controls.” However, although the ban includes sensitive technologies produced in foreign countries using software or other equipment developed in the US, it does not extend to enterprise software.
