Women walk past an office of Sberbank in Moscow, Russia, September 12, 2014. (Reuters Photo)

MOSCOW, Aug. 9 (Xinhua) -- Russia's largest lender Sberbank and Internet company Yandex signed a non-binding contract to form a joint venture to develop an e-commerce ecosystem, the companies said in a statement Wednesday.

Sberbank will invest 30 billion rubles (around 500 million U.S. dollars) into the new company created by Yandex. Market, one of the largest players in Russia's e-commerce market, values it at 60 billion rubles (about 1 billion dollars), the statement said.

Sberbank and Yandex will own equal stakes in the joint venture, while up to 10 percent of its shares will be allocated to the management and employees, it said.

"This partnership will open up new opportunities for Russian producers, e-commerce players, and small and medium businesses," Sberbank's CEO Herman Gref said in the statement.

The cooperation will also unlock opportunities for Russian exports and create a new channel for international participants in the market, he added.

The deal has yet to be approved by Russian regulators, but the two companies said they anticipated the deal to close by the end of this year.

Sberbank and Yandex already have one joint venture for e-transactions, for which Sberbank bought a 75-percent stake in Yandex.

Last month, Yandex announced a partnership with San Francisco-based Uber, planning to merge their ride-hailing and food delivery services in Russia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Georgia and Kazakhstan.

Yandex specializes in Internet-related services and runs Russia's biggest search engine.