Ural Bank of Sberbank of Russia’s 490 subsidiaries have sent over 2.5 billion RUR worth of money orders through BLITZ since the beginning of the year; this amounts to approximately 50,000 operations. BLITZ is both a convenient and advantageous way to transfer money as quickly as possible. Speed is this system’s major strength: it only takes half an hour for the money to be registered within the system, and another half an hour for the receiver to get their cash. It is as if the customers just keep their money in a sort of hyper-wallet that is available to them or their relatives in any spot

‘RTS stock index had been going down from 2,000 points and stopped at 1,915 points; this week, the figure has been fluctuating between 1,955 and 1,990 points. Due to ambiguity of data on the world markets and lack of domestic news, the market is still looking for a direction. RTS and MICEX indices at the close of business came to 1,960.4 and 3,439.8 points respectively on April 26, 2007,’ says SKB-Bank’s trader Alexander Sterkhov. ‘President’s Putin address to the Federal Assembly has been the highlight of the week. The address covers some of the issues related to how the money accumulated

Russian Copper Company has been trying to build up its ore-processing capacity, their press officer says; the growth dynamics can be seen in the fact that the enterprise handled 4 million tons of ore last year, whereas the figures for 2003 only reached the point of 800,000 tons. This year, 5 million tons of ore are expected to be processed due to launching a number of mines in Sverdlovsk and Chelyabinsk Regions.

Sverdlovsk Region public prosecution authorities met to discuss the ways of enhancing the efficiency of cooperation in the field of fighting bribery among law-enforcement agencies of different types. It was reported that 270 corruption-related crimes that jeopardized the state and the civil service had been revealed in January-March 2007, compared to only 629 cases disclosed over the entire year 2006. In addition to this, there were more general inspections aimed at finding offenses in the field of state and municipal service: the region’s prosecutors revealed 172 such offenses in the first

GRAN Bank might merge with Investbank in the near future, GRAN’s press release says. GRAN Bank’s BOD meeting resulted in the decision to suggest that the shareholders vote for a merger with Investbank in the course of the annual general meeting. The AGM attendees will also have to consider issues related to reorganization of the company, details of the merger agreement and so on. The directors themselves have already come up with a preliminary approval of the papers needed for the transaction and of the necessary amendments to Investbank’s charter as well as of the provisions regarding the

According to the Central Bank of Russia, the volume of loans given by Uralfinprombank to profit-making NGOs for a term of up to 30 days went down 11.7% (from 31.715 million RUR to 28 million RUR) in January 2006-March 2007.

Ural State University elected its new Rector, the 45-year-old Yekaterinburg Duma deputy and the Dean of the Department of History Dmitriy Bugrov on April 26, 2007. Five people ran for the post altogether: Dmitriy Bugrov, Dean of the Department of Philosophy Alexander Pertzev, Provost Evgeniy Pamyatnikh, Dean of the Department of Physics Alexei Babushkin, and Director of USU Institute for Management and Entrepreneurship Alexei Klyuev. The election procedure lasted for more than six hours, since all the candidates had to present their development projects first. Then the voters (heads of all of

‘Noviy Grad, one of the local builders, will probably not be able to operate on the regional real estate market any longer; this is quite obvious, given the fact that their general contractor (HydroSpetsStroy Ltd.) is now undergoing bankruptcy proceedings with Ms Olga Rushitskaya as their acting trustee in bankruptcy and the company cannot afford to put up any more buildings,’ Director of Dishonest Builders Opposition Fund Konstantin Dushechkin said to UrBC. ‘The question we are most worried about now is what is going to happen to the disadvantaged investors. We hope the authorities withdraw

Yekaterinburg Municipal Duma Budget and Economic Policies Committee analyzed the report on the city’s budget revenues and expenditures in 2006. Financing of social projects and use of money obtained through letting municipal property were the items that received the most attention. The budget revenues reached the point of 15 billion RUR last year, which exceeds the initial target figures by 8.8%. Donations from the regional and federal budgets amounted to 4 billion RUR. Taxpaying businesses still owe the city 1 billion RUR. The budget expenditures amounted to 13.4 billion RUR, which falls

Chelyabinsk customs officers filed 3 administrative suits against trademark violators; the first case involves a Kazakh citizen who was trying to smuggle 15,000 undeclared lighters bearing Cricket trademark in his own car. The automobile was stopped by the officers in the village of Letyagino. Then, Chelyabinsk customs received a complaint from the owner of Stolichnaya trademark regarding violation of his trademark by a Russian citizen. The offender in question was detained in the act of relocating 720 bottles of Stolichnaya without any sales or trademark use permits. Finally, a citizen of