Gosbank
Gosbank- Gosudarstvennyy bank--the State Bank
The Gosbank was the central bank of the Soviet Union. It was also the only commercial bank in the Soviet Union. The Gosbank was one of three economic authorities in Russia, the other two being Gosplan (State Planning Committee) and Gossnab (State Committee for Material Technical Supply).
Gosbank did not act as a commercial bank in the sense understood in the West. In theory it acted as an instrument for government policy. Instead of independently and impartially assessing the creditworthiness of the borrower, Gosbank provided loan funds to "favored individuals, groups and industries" as directed by the central government. [1]
The Soviets also used Gosbank as a tool to impose central control on industry, using bank balances and transaction histories to monitor the activity of individual concerns and their compliance with Plans and directives.
As the Soviet Union neared collapse, and as part of Mikhail Gorbachev's perestroika program, other banks were formed including Pomstriobank, Zhilstosbank, Agrobank, Vneshekombank, and Sberbank. Sberbank continues to this day as one of Russia's largest banks, retaining senior Gosbank personnel and most government banking business.