The paper studies empirically competition on regional markets for banking services in Russia. Bank-level statistics collected in two adjacent Russian regions, namely Bashkortostan and Tatarstan, enabled to compare these markets. Estimation based on Herfindahl-Hirschman index, Lerner index and Panzar-Rosse model suggests that both regional markets are featured by monopolistic competition. Contrary to ex ante expectations, intensity of competition in Bashkortostan turned out to be higher than in Tatarstan. There is found no convincing statistical proof to the theoretical hypothesis that market power dynamics are driven by market structure, i.e. by the degree of market concentration in the hands of top players.