The Ural Bank for Reconstruction and Development raised the number of its bank cards by 18.4% in the first half of 2008, so the figure now comes to 475,262,000 cards. The number of Visa cards went up by 24.3%, the number of MasterCard ones went up by 2%. The bank’s Bank Card Technologies Director Yulia Vasina explains the increase in the number of MasterCard bank cards they issued did not increase dramatically because most new cards the bank offered to its customers were Visa ones.

‘There are several reasons for Visa to be so popular, the main one being a united ATM network with over 500 machines all over Russia. This is very important for customers’ convenience and financial benefits,’ she says.

The balance of the bank’s customers bank card ruble, U.S. dollar, and euro accounts has gone up by 14.5%, gone down by 19%, and increased by 3.7%, respectively, since the beginning of the year.

‘The fact that less money is now left in our customers’ dollar accounts primarily has to do with the exchange rate fluctuations on the global markets. At the same time, the balance of ruble accounts is on the increase thanks to the growing reliance on the Russian currency,’ Yulia Vasina notes.

To make MasterCard more popular and therefore provide more of them for the bank’s customers, the Ural Bank for Reconstruction and Development is going to launch MasterCard chip cards on August 15, 2008.