I was a bit let down by Alfa Bank, so I started hunting for debit cards from other banks. I ended up testing Gazprombank and Ozon Bank. I’ll talk about Ozon later – here’s what I thought of Gazprombank.

All screenshots are from the Gazprombank app.

🔷WHAT DREW ME TO GAZPROMBANK?🔷

It all started with those promo emails from Ozon that always slip in a little freebie for online services. One of them advertised a Gazprombank debit card with a 1,000‑ruble bonus. I clicked, applied, and waited. Turns out that 1,000 never showed up.

A big plus is that the debit card has no monthly fee. Even if I barely use it, I can keep it as a backup without worrying about a hidden charge.

They also run a ‘refer a friend’ promo – the referrer gets 1,000 RUB, the new user gets 500 RUB. We actually got that cash, so that part worked as promised.

🔹Cashback

When you sign up you have to pick a cashback scheme – ‘Smart’ or ‘Simple’. My boyfriend went with Simple, I chose Smart. In hindsight that was a dumb move. Stick with Simple if you want the easiest path.

The Smart program only gives cash back on fixed categories you can’t tweak, while Simple just hands you a flat 1.5 % on everything, which is a lot more straightforward.

When I applied there was a limited‑time offer: 35 % cashback on top‑spending categories. That’s huge, and it covered groceries, marketplaces, household goods, clothing, shoes – basically everything I buy on a regular basis.

🔹Deposit rates

Gazprombank also bragged about one of the highest deposit rates at the time – around 20‑21 % (May‑June 2025). You can open a term deposit or a savings account, and the rates look the same on paper.

🔷HOW TO GET THE CARD?🔷

You can walk into a branch and do it in person, or apply online. My town only has one Gazprombank office and it’s a trek, so I went the online route. I entered my name, passport info, address, and picked a day and time for the courier delivery.

On the scheduled day the courier – a woman – called about half an hour before arriving. We signed the paperwork right inside my apartment, which felt surprisingly convenient.

Honestly, it’s a mixed bag. With Tinkoff, couriers never come up to your flat – you have to meet them in the car. When I got my Tinkoff card it was scorching outside and the courier didn’t invite me into the vehicle. I ended up signing on the hood. Super inconvenient.

On the flip side, having a stranger come into your apartment isn’t always comfortable. But I felt a bit more at ease because the courier was a young woman with a sweet voice. So getting the card this way was way better than my experience with Tinkoff.

All you need to sign up for the card is your passport and a phone. I’d download the Gazprombank app ahead of time—it’s required for activation.

\n\n\n\n\nThe courier handed me the contract, and it didn’t even have the “I opt out of paid SMS” checkbox (yeah, classic T‑Bank sneaky add‑ons, and they expect you to comb through the fine print yourself). I signed, they snapped a photo of me with the envelope, and then the courier helped me activate the card in the app.

I’m a bit fuzzy on the exact steps now, but I remember having to enter the SMS code twice, and the courier did most of the work once I handed her my phone. She also turned off the paid SMS alerts and even offered to do it herself.

\n\n\n\n\nTo fully activate it, you need to top up the card with 100 RUB and make a payment in the app. We paid a mobile‑phone bill. After that, the plastic card was ready to go.

The plastic card is plain‑vanilla, not personalized—just the word “MOMENTUM” instead of a name. It works everywhere, supports contactless payments, and because it’s on the MIR network, it’s usable across Russia.

🔷MY IMPRESSIONS AS A GAZPROMBANK CUSTOMER🔷

Luckily, I didn’t run into any nightmare scenarios—no random fees, surprise credit lines, or blocked cards.

On the flip side, the bank kept every promise: they paid the deposit interest, gave me cash back, and didn’t skim extra cash. Still, why do I only feel “meh”? Let me break it down point by point.

1️⃣ TECH SUPPORT

One word: indifferent. I reached out to support three or four times with questions—why the “refer a friend” bonus wasn’t showing up, how to switch cash‑back programs, how much you need to keep on the card to earn cash back, that sort of thing.

For the first one, they just told me to wait. The second got an instruction that was impossible to follow—there’s no button for it in the app or on the site. So basically a useless answer.

\n\n\n\n\nFor the third, they sent a multi‑page document outlining the cash‑back rules. Actually, it was just a link to a bank page with the file. I had to download it to my phone and wade through the whole thing just to find my answer.

Bottom line: I wasn’t thrilled with support. They’re fast, but either my questions are dumb or they don’t care about making the card easy to use.

2️⃣ CASH BACK

Like I mentioned before, I had a Smart cashback program, and my partner was on a Straightforward one. They’re totally different.

🔹Smart cashback

With this plan, you only earn cashback on clothing, gas stations, pharmacies and transport. I get 3%, but if you sign up for the Gazprom Bonus subscription you can bump it up to 5%. The catch? Most other banks already give 5% on those categories, so there’s no reason for me to pull out my Gazprom card just for the standard cashback. In short, using the card just for the ‘Smart’ program isn’t worth it.

Smart cashback🔹Straightforward cashback

Here you earn 1.5% on everything, or 2% if you add the Gazprom Bonus subscription. We mainly used this card for grocery runs because other banks only offered 1% on all purchases. So the partner’s straightforward card racked up cashback, while I barely touched my ‘Smart’ one.

Straightforward cashback🔹35% bonus on key categories

That was an awesome promo, and I’m bummed it’s over. Basically, you got a whopping 35% cashback on the top‑tier categories (you can see the gray text in the screenshot). I didn’t crunch the numbers to confirm the exact 35%—it’s hard to verify—but the cash back felt massive.

Nice thing is that the promo cashback was credited separately from the regular cash back.

🔹Cashback downsides🔹

1) First downside: the cashback comes as points that you have to convert to rubles. The rate is 1 point = 0.8 RUB, so my 1,600 points turned into just 1,300 RUB.

2) Second, the points sit on a separate page and you can only cash them out once you hit 1,500 points.

The kicker is that with the base 1.5% rate, you need to spend about 100 k RUB to reach those 1,500 points. So you either have to splash a lot each month or let the cashback sit for a few months before you can actually use it.

3️⃣ Interest on deposits

Gazprom offers both term deposits and savings accounts, and the rates are almost identical. I don’t see a reason to lock money in a deposit when I can get the same percentage on a savings account that lets me move money around more freely.

Savings accounts can calculate interest on the daily balance or the minimum balance. There are also welcome bonuses if you’ve never opened a Gazprom account or deposit, plus a higher rate if you’re subscribed to Gazprom Bonus.

They promise 17%, but the base rate is only 10% :( Just like many other banks, the landing page flashes a high interest rate, but once you click into the specific deposit or account page, you discover the base rate is tiny and the extra bonuses only kick in if you meet certain conditions—like becoming a salary client, signing up for a subscription, and so on.

I opened just one savings account at Gazprombank with a 20% rate that applied to the minimum balance. Basically, after opening it once, there was no point in topping it up. The boosted rate lasted the first two months, then dropped to 14%. It seemed like they paid me everything I was owed, but I never crunched the exact numbers.

To pull money out of the deposit, you have to open a separate account, move the funds there, then transfer them to your card, and only then can you send them wherever you want. It’s clunky and odd. At any other bank you can just send the deposit straight to your card without creating extra accounts.

🔷MAIN DRAWBACK OF GAZPROMBANK🔷 …is that the bank’s terms are anything but clear. Every feature you might want—cashback, deposits, purchases—comes with a dozen weird conditions you have to sift through.

For example, to snag 1,500 cashback points you have to keep a 30 k balance on the card. Same story for any deposit interest—you need at least 30 k on the card. That’s the minimum; there are higher tiers at 50 k and 150 k that unlock bigger cashback or better deposit rates.

What’s odd is the app shows an “average monthly balance” you’re supposed to maintain, but the numbers flip all the time—sometimes to absurd amounts (see screenshot below)—so you can’t trust it. Clicking “all program terms” just throws you into a massive 34‑page PDF with teeny‑tiny font that’s impossible to read on a phone.

I dug through it and realized it’s an out‑of‑date version that the devs never updated. It still breaks down cashback based on purchase amounts, while the bank keeps shouting that now cashback is earned on the card balance, not on spending.

Customer support is a dead end, so I had to hunt down clear info on how the cashback is calculated from other users online.

The bank basically forces you to keep a certain amount sitting on your card for free. You don’t earn anything from that money – it just sits there while the bank uses it. And you have to make sure the balance never drops below 30 000.

🔷CONCLUSION🔷

In short, Gazprombank feels like a club for the wealthy and big spenders. To get any real benefit you need to stash a lot of cash there and spend heavily. The loyalty program rules are a maze; you have to know a ton of quirks or you’ll end up stuck.

If you dig into the fine print and figure it out, the bank can be decent value. It was especially good while the “35 % on the most important stuff” promo was running. Without that, I’d have been grinding for a miserable 1 500 cashback points forever. Plus, I wasn’t thrilled about just parking a 30k balance for no reason.

Bottom line: I’m not closing my Gazprombank card – it’s free to keep, after all. I’m just tucking it into the back of my wallet because I’d rather have something simpler and clearer.

🔷My thoughts on other banks🔷

ALFA BANK – My take on the bank compared to Sberbank and Tinkoff. Switching banks. Review fully updated in 2025

OZON BANK Savings Account – How to get MORE MONEY and what to watch for when picking a savings product

TINKOFF BANK – My failed attempt to move to Tinkoff. How a bank comment under this review changed my rating