Expert-Ural, the center for business analytics, came up with a report on the Urals and Western Siberia’s lending markets performance in the first half of 2008. The analysts report the Ural consumer lending market rose by 12.9% between January 1, 2008 and June 1, 2008 (compared with the 20.6% growth a year earlier), SKB-Bank’s press officer reports. The center compiled a rating of the Urals and Western Siberia’s twenty-five largest banks and major players on the consumer lending market. SKB-Bank, with its 13.4 billion RUR worth of loans to private individuals in the first half of 2008 (26.7%

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

‘The Czech entrepreneurs don’t often have a very hard time in Sverdlovsk Region. Yekaterinburg’s municipal council and Sverdlovsk Region Government are interested in cooperating with our business community and they do their best to make this cooperation work,’ Jan Krs from the Czech Consulate in Yekaterinburg said to UrBC. ‘At the same time, we don’t get as much support from the federal authorities. The lion’s share of difficulties our businesspeople are faced with is related to customs checks. The thing is, quite a few parts of Russia, including Sverdlovsk Region, haven’t had much contact

Central Bank of Russia reports volume of for-profit self-regulatory organizations’ deposits in Sverdlovsk Gubernskiy Bank valid for 91 to 180 days went down by 34.45% (from 60.002 million RUR to 39.327 million RUR) in January-June 2008.

UC RUSAL’s Bogoslovskiy smelter started working on some large treads and protectors meant for anticorrosion protection of an international gas pipeline located on the bottom of the Kara Sea. Over 74 tons of protectors have to be made within the first order, UC RUSAL’s press officer for Ural Federal District Roman Lukichev reports. The protectors are made from aluminum alloys; the produce has been certified, awarded with the quality seal, and is believed to outstrip its foreign counterparts in some respects. Bogoslovskiy smelter has already taken part in the construction of oil and gas

According to the Central Bank of Russia, volume of for-profit self-regulatory organizations’ deposits in Uralprivatbank valid for 1 to 3 years went down by 21.21% (from 355.95 million RUR to 280.45 million RUR) in January-June 2008.

Sberbank’s Ural branch’s private individual loan portfolio has increased by 16.7 billion RUR since the beginning of the year and reached 100 billion RUR, while the share of bad debt only amounted to .6%, which means the bank’s loan portfolio is a good quality one. ‘Sberbank’s Ural branch keeps building up on the loans given to private individuals and is now one of the regional market’s major players. Sberbank of Russia started offering loans to private customers as early as 1998, and we managed to both deserve and live up to people’s trust and expectations,’ says Sberbank’s Ural branch’s

‘The name of the supermarket that is going to replace Grossmart in Yekaterinburg’s Park House Mall is to be announced at the end of July or early August 2008,’ reports Ilona Starodubtseva, the spokeswoman for Deputy Mayor of Yekaterinburg Viktor Konteev. In June 2008, Grossmart cut down on the assortment of products it offered; in addition, a number of shelves were dismantled, so customers assumed the store was about to close down. Prior to this, RTM, a developer business, made a number of Grossmart stores in Krasnoyarsk, Tula, and Saint Petersburg stop working due to a clash over the rent.

Central Bank of Russia reports volume of loans given by Bank Uralfinance to private individuals for up to 30 days plummeted by 100% (from 1.15 million RUR to zero) in January-June 2008.

One’s Private Office is now available via Ural Airlines’ official website. After one goes through the site registration, one can save a lot of time when booking the carrier’s tickets online. To get a site account, a user has to fill in the data such as their name and ID number, their gender, citizenship, DOB, their Wings Travel Club membership number, the way they’d like to get their tickets (the delivery address or the name of the booking office where the tickets would be picked up), and the bank address and account number for non-cash transactions. All these data will be saved and used for