MOSCOW -- More than 1,000 pensioners across Russia will receive their monthly stipends at ATMs throughout the country, according to the St. Petersburg Times.
Using ATMs to distribute benefits is part of an ambitious program by state-owned savings bank Sberbank to cut down on paperwork and increase fiscal oversight. Sberbank has issued Pension Cards, which allow pensioners to get their payments with a PIN at any of 340 Sberbank ATMs.
The first cards, which run on the Cirrus/Maestro network, were made available Feb. 1 and the first credits on the accounts of card keepers will be posted in March.
Sberbank hopes to attract more of Russia's 38 million pensioners to the program once the system is up and running and an educational campaign is intensified. According to the bank, the biggest benefit of the Pension Card is that it allows the holder to avoid the long lines that form at every Sberbank on payday.
The card can also be used with a human teller at one of the bank's 1,980 branches. In Moscow alone, there are 130 Sberbank ATMs and 770 branches.
Card holders will be charged between 50 rubles and 120 rubles a year for the service, depending on the region. A 0.5 percent commission is charged on every transaction only if the pensioner takes money from a different region than his or her own.
The new card is aimed mainly at pensioners with relatively high income levels -- people who can easily pay 120 rubles a year for the service and who do not have time to stand in lines, according to Sberbank.
The bank plans to offer cards to others who receive state benefits, including students.
The Pension Fund said that more than 30 billion rubles ($1.07 billion) in pension payments flow through Sberbank each month.
