Planned Russian post bank needs $1 bln at start

MOSCOW Dec 24 (Reuters) - Russian state bank VEB needs 30 billion roubles ($993 million) in the first stage of setting up a federal postal bank, RIA agency reported on Thursday quoting a director general of Russian Post.

VEB, the state agent and distributor of the government's anti-crisis package, plans to create a postal bank on the basis of its subsidiary Svyazbank and with the participation of Russian Post, which has twice as many branches as the country's current biggest lender Sberbank SBER03.MM.

"At the beginning 30 billion roubles will be needed to start realising the project," Alexander Kiselyov was quoted as saying.

Russian Post has 42,000 branches, employs 415,000 people and handles 190 million money transfer operations a year with pensions transfer as a key operation, but many post offices date from the Soviet Union and need modernising.

Sberbank has 19,050 branches, employs around 270,000 people and holds half of Russia's retail deposits. (Reporting by Dmitry Sergeyev; Editing by Dan Lalor) ($1 = 30.20 roubles)