‘The Association of Regional Russian Banks classed the independent examination conducted by FBK Company at the request of ROSNO, the insurer, as not objective, since the expert never asked UralTransBank, the other party, for any information or papers. So, one could say that ROSNO only provided the expert with the documents it wanted to show,’ Vice President of the Association of Regional Russian Banks Olga Maslennikova said to UrBC representative.

The dispute originally started when the two companies accused each other of failing to meet the terms of their general agreement regarding credit risk insurance related to consumer loans. UralTransBank claimed that ROSNO had not been paying them any bad debt compensation since April 2006; the insurer said the bank had failed to produce all the documents needed to confirm the cases in question as insured events.

‘In order for the examination to be truly independent, a disinterested party such as Association Russia should organize a tender,’ Ms Maslennikova said.

Ms Maslennikova also reported that the upcoming meeting of the Federal Insurance Surveillance committee would be devoted to the examination by FBK Company and the official response of UralTransBank to their report. The meeting was scheduled for 6 PM on January 19, 2007.

The Association of Regional Russian Banks came up with an official press release today that says their analysts suspect the report by FBK Company Ltd. was not objective.

‘ROSNO used FBK Company Ltd., an independent auditing and consulting firm, in order to assess the damage done to UralTransBank by the occurrence of the insured event. The independent expert said that the bank had not provided enough papers to calculate the loss and make the insurer pay a justified compensation. Yet the Association considers this conclusion to be ungrounded,’ the press release says.