A senior source at HSBC in Moscow said that the bank will this month open its first five branches in Russia, while its private banking services are already operational.

The source, meanwhile, dismissed rumours that the bank was scaling back its ambitious plans to roll out retail and private banking in Russia’s major cities.

In March last year, HSBC said it earmarked $200 million to invest in Russia through organic growth rather than by acquiring bank branches.

Johan Sekora has been seconded to Moscow from Japan after a successful launch of HSBC there. A grand opening of a central Moscow branch is expected in the next week or two, according to the source.

HSBC’s private banking representative office opened late last year. It is headed by Natalia Solodovnikova, who was previously part of the private banking product department of Deutsche Bank in Zurich.

Until recently, Moscow HSBC has been represented on the Russian private banking market by the division of the Swiss office of HSBC, where Russian client accounts were opened.

The bank has already opened three new regional representative offices in Ekaterinburg, Novosibirsk and St Petersburg, which will offer corporate clients a range of commercial banking services.

The drive by HSBC into Russia is being headed by Stuart Lawson, who took over as chief executive 15 months ago from Jon Hartley.

Mr Lawson was chief executive of Citibank’s Russian business in the 1990s, before becoming chairman of Russian bank Deltabank in 2001 and taking over in 2004 as chairman and chief executive of Bank Soyuz, a Russian bank controlled by oligarch Oleg Deripaska.

One of HSBC’s UK rivals, Barclays, has already completed much of its rebranding of 36 branches of Russia’s Expobank, acquired by Barclays in March last year for $745 million.

Russia is continuing to draw in private banks from the West, despite the economic downturn. WealthBriefing last week revealed that RBC Wealth Management was joining the push into Russia by opening its own represenative office later this year in Moscow.