The Ural Bank for Reconstruction and Development raised its assets up to 30,294,492,000 RUR, or

by 14.2%, in the first half of 2007. Its loan portfolio amounted to 20,927,056,000 RUR on July 1, 2007, which exceeds the figures for January 1, 2007 by 29.6%. The customers’ accounts balance went up by 14.6% compared to the beginning of the year and reached 24,002,073,000 RUR, with the volume of natural persons’ deposits growing by 16%, or up to 16,416,146,000 RUR. The bank’s net profit amounted to 614,172,000 RUR in the first half of 2007, which is 6.3 times better than in January-June 2006, the bank’s press officer reports.

'Our growth and development has been caused by a number of factors such as improving on our business processes (which made it possible to reduce our operating expenses), introducing more offices in the regions where the banking market is developing very dynamically, and perfecting our risk management system (which means we can now avoid a lot of bad debt),’ the Ural Bank for Reconstruction and Development’s Strategic Development Director Andrei Emelyanov says.

'What is more, reinvesting our profits and financing the regional network expansion have already resulted in an impressive 27.1% increase in the bank’s equity capital that now comes to 3,069,854,000 RUR,’ Mr. Emelyanov observes.