On Wednesday June 29th Petr Aven, President of Alfa-Bank met with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

President Putin and Petr Aven discussed the situation with banking sector in Russia, consumer lending and mortgage system development. Aven said that it may take up to three years before mortgage loans become as popular among bank clients as consumer loans are now.

Putin and Aven also discussed last year mini crisis when Russia’s banking sector suffered a clients confidence crisis. The liquidity problems that Alfa-Bank faced during that crisis in June-July 2004 were artificial, said Vladimir Putin.

“I hope that since our meeting last year there were some positive changes, and currently the tensions have passed,Though, I think that they were caused artificially. In 2004, despite the tensions, which I suppose were artificial, you were not greedy and dealt with your clients correctly and fairly,” Putin said.