‘The introduction of mobile money orders would be a rather logical m-banking innovation,’ Lyudmila Protasova, PR Director of MegaFon Ural, says regarding a global money order system brought about by GSM Association. ‘Our clients can pay the subscription fee using their bank account if they sign a special additional agreement providing their account number and the way money must be transferred into the company’s account,’ Ms Protasova explained. ‘Russian mobile operators, though, are not likely to join the global m-payment network any time soon, since they would have to get a banking license

The solemn awarding ceremony at the close of the 6th All-Russian Community-Minded Enterprise Contest took place in the State Kremlin Palace a few days ago. Some members of SUAL Group won in Russia’s major social competition for the sixth time. A special committee and the representatives of a number of industrial labor unions chose the winners of the year 2006 in additional and sectorial categories. Kandalashskiy Aluminum Plant won in the Development of Medical Care for Employees category, SevUralBauxiteRuda won in the Development of Catering for Employees category, Irkutsk Aluminum Plant was

SKB-Bank has recently come up with a new offer: small and medium-scale businesses can now get a loan without the company’s representative actually visiting the bank. All the application forms can now be filled by the bank’s clerk in the course of a phone conversation with the potential borrower. Then, it will take the experts just one day to consider the application, the financial records, and the documents provided by the entrepreneur and, should they decide to give a loan, this businessperson only needs to visit whichever office they like best, pick up the papers and sign the loan

‘Strong drinks produced by Nemiroff, a Ukrainian company, only make up 5.5% of our merchandise, Olga Nagibina, the spokesperson for Kirovskiy supermarket chain, said to UrBC. ‘We rely on produce of other Ukrainian companies a little bit more heavily, but on the whole, Ukrainian vodka cannot pose a threat to Russian alcohol. Just one Russian vodka brand, for instance, constitutes 18% of all strong drinks we sell,’ Ms Nagibina noted.

‘Ural Airlines made a great offer when they started selling single tickets for summer flights at only 3,999 RUR. I am inclined to think a lot of tourists are going to snatch at this chance, even though the locals are not used to taking care of their vacations in advance,’ says Dmitriy Goltsev, director of Grand-Voyage Travel Agency. One can buy tickets to Sochi, Anapa, Krasnodar, Mineralniye Vody, and Simferopol (all situated at the Black Sea) quite cheaply between February 1 and March 31, 2007. ‘The price of the plane tickets can successfully beat the cheapness of the train ones, which means

According to the Central Bank of Russia, volume of loans given by UralTransBank to natural person for a term of 181 days to 1 year went down 33.9% (from 513,314,000 RUR to 339,241,000 RUR) in January 2006-January 2007.

Sverdlovsk Region division of Federal Antimonopoly Service has recently evaluated the re-organization project of Yekaterinburg Electrical Network Company, reports the spokesperson for Federal Antimonopoly Service. The plan, consisting in the prospective segregation into the network and the sales departments, has been approved of. This means that a power supplying company is to be singled out from Yekaterinburg Electrical Network Company by October 1, 2007. According to the existing law, all the power suppliers must be fragmented into the generating companies, the network companies, and the

‘We and are not blacklisting dishonest borrowers and never did,’ says Maxim Chobitko, Capital Crimes Director of Yekaterinburg Department of Internal Affairs, relating to rumors about the local Department of Internal Affairs allegedly creating some dishonest borrowers database. ‘A special Credit Bureau was set up to serve this purpose; what I said at a press conference was that the security departments of some banks were cooperating in order to keep their own records,’ Mr. Chobitko said.

Sverdlovsk Region Ministry for Public Property Management sees increasing profitability of land allotments as its top priority for the year 2007. This line of business is expected to yield the better part of money received by the region’s budget, Minister for Public Property Management Alexei Molotkov announced at a recent meeting. He also mentioned some agricultural projects to be implemented in Krasnoufimsk and Slobodo-Turinskiy districts. Like Artemovskiy district, they are to set up a number of agricultural firms or joint-stock companies that will make use of the state-owned land and

According to the Central Bank of Russia, 1,344 crediting organizations have been registered in Russia by February 1, 2007, including 1,292 banks and 52 non-bank entities. Only 1,138 out of 1,183 actually operating crediting organizations, however, have been officially registered. 153 organizations use some foreign investments as part of their authorized capital (in 52 of them, these investments amount to 100% of their assets, 15 entities use foreign investments to cover over 50% of their authorized capital). 3,286 subsidiaries of operating crediting organizations have been registered in