Abstract: In this article, the author examines from a regional perspective the credit operations of the State Bank of the Russian Empire in ten time sections of 5-year intervals during the period from 1868 to 1913. Lending was the bank's main function as a conventional commercial bank, as well as a developing central bank (credit regulation, operating as the bank of banks, and also lender of the last resort). The State Bank was the largest integrator of the banking market. The elements of the emerging two-tier financial system can be traced long before this bank assumed in 1897 the role of being the regulator of money circulation in Russia. The State Bank was the largest commercial bank in the country, but in terms of the number of loans issued it was always ceded to the system of joint-stock commercial banks. A significant number of State Bank loans were issued to the grain-producing areas of European Russia. The offices and branches of the State Bank were the reference points through which its resources, directly or through joint-stock commercial banks, were distributed throughout the country. The St. Petersburg and Moscow offices played an important role in this system. The cycles in the lending dynamics of the State Bank and joint-stock commercial banks did not coincide: the State Bank often increased lending when commercial banks reduced. This may indicate that the State Bank always had elements of being the lender of last resort in its operation.