Over the past six months of 2025, Russian banks have almost completely stopped advising clients through foreign messengers. From April to October, the share of banks using Telegram fell from 73% to 6%, and WhatsApp completely disappeared from practice — from 1% to 0%.
The reason for the sharp reduction was new legislative restrictions: from June 1, 2025, banks, financial organizations and government agencies are prohibited from communicating with clients through foreign platforms that process personal data. This applies to notifications, consultations and service offers. Despite the ban, some banks continued to use Telegram for several weeks after the law came into force.
Instead of foreign messengers, banks have actively transferred communication to their own mobile applications. Today, 85% of organizations use this channel for consulting, informing and supporting clients.
At the same time, domestic messengers have not yet gained popularity: the only example is VTB, which advises clients through the Max platform.
