Digital Bank Tinkoff Hires Ex-Morgan Stanley Exec as co-CEO for Asia Expansion

Russian online bank Tinkoff has hired former Morgan Stanley investment banker and energy executive Pavel Fyodorov to lead its expansion into Southeast Asia, the Financial Times (FT) reported Monday (Nov. 8).

Fyodorov will work as co-CEO alongside the bank’s chief executive, Oliver Hughes, at Tinkoff’s holding company TCS.

In a press release, the board of TCS said the appointment of joint chief executives with different briefs would “further develop its pivotal entrepreneurial spirit and innovative culture, while at the same time deepening its executive bench.”

Tinkoff plans to spend about $200 million on its international growth in the next two years. The group recently applied for a banking license in the Philippines and is exploring launches in both India and Indonesia in the coming months and expansion into African and South American markets, per the report.

Tinkoff has 17 million customers in Russia and has soared in value this year to reach a market capitalization of $22.5 billion, according to the FT report.

Read more: Cian Will Sell IPO Shares for $16 Each

On Nov. 5, it was reported that Tinkoff was acting as one of several joint book-runners for the initial public offering of Russian online real estate classifieds platform Cian PLC.

Read more: No Deal For Russia’s Yandex Merger With Tinkoff Group

Last year, Russian search giant Yandex said that merger talks with TCS had fallen apart.

In an October 2020 statement, it said, “Yandex regrets to confirm that it has not been able to agree to definitive transaction terms with the core shareholders of Tinkoff, and accordingly that the parties have mutually agreed to terminate discussions regarding a possible offer by Yandex for 100% of the share capital of Tinkoff.”

A preliminary deal announced the previous month was set at $5.5 billion in cash and shares, according to a Bloomberg report at the time.