‘After the outbreak of the Ossetian-Georgian conflict and the opening of the Olympics the ruble turned into devaluated currency in comparison with the other ones, especially the U.S. dollar. This has to do with Russia’s increasingly strained relations with the rest of the world,’ Eurogreen Investment Company’s General Director Evgeniy Kostarev said to UrBC. According to Tomorrow’s calculations, the ruble/dollar exchange rate came to 25.13 RUR per 1 dollar on September 4, 2008. This exceeds the official figures for the day by.26 RUR. In the meantime, the dollar rate against the ruble has been

Investbank Joint Stock Commercial Bank’s Supervisory Board released the BOD Chairman Alexei Sveshnikov from office; besides, Sveshnikov is no longer going to be the BOD member. First Deputy Chairman Maxim Skochko is to become acting Chairman on September 8, 2008. Maxim Skochko was entitled to acting on the bank’s behalf without designation of authority.

Pervouralsk New Pipe Plant (part of ChTPZ Group) underwent re-certification audit by TUF CERT and proved the compliance of its EN and DIN standard-based boiler tubes with the European directive 97/23 and AD 2000 W0/TRD100 technical requirements. ‘We needed to have our weldless tubes and pipes certified in accordance with these requirements due to the stable demand for these goods; besides, one has to have such a certificate in order to deliver one’s produce to the EU,’ the enterprise’s press officer says. The certificating body’s experts examined the enterprise’s main production shops

‘A bank’s customer is normally interested in having the services customized as much as possible to suit their unique needs and in getting a special treatment. A bank, in its turn, would like to have its services universalized, as every out-of-the-ordinary solution makes it harder to get things standardized and thus results in greater transaction expenses. Ironically, both the bank and the customer will end up paying for this in the end,’ says URSA Bank’s Deputy GD Daniil Sandler. The bank executive feels the solution to the problem lies in thinking up new ways of mutually beneficial

A special offer for shoppers will be available at Sberbank’s Ural branch from September 1, 2008 to October 31, 2008. All you have to do is use the bank’s card any time you purchase anything that costs 300 RUR or more. Eight most regular card users will be presented with travel certificates, while another 2,000 cardholders will get 300 RUR in their bank card accounts, the spokesperson for the bank says. All the holders of Sberbank’s Ural branch’s cards are most welcome to take advantage of this special offer, valid throughout Sverdlovsk, Chelyabinsk, and Kurgan Regions and in Bashkortostan.

VIZ Stal delivered a formal statement regarding the acquisition of 70.93% shareholding in Verkh-Isetskiy metallurgical plant.

Ural Treasures Bank introduced CyberPlat, the e-payment system, on August 27, 2008. The system has been around for over nine years now and is Russia and the CIS’ largest service of this kind. It’s also one of the most reliable and smooth-operating ones, the bank’s press officer says. CyberPlat terminals have been installed in the following offices: 14 Gagarin St. Yekaterinburg; 136 Lunacharskiy St. Yekaterinburg; 41 Sacco & Vanzetti St. Yekaterinburg; 13 VIZ Boulevard Yekaterinburg; 476 Volgogradskaya St. Yekaterinburg; 17 Academik Schwarz St. Yekaterinburg; 32 Griboedov St.

RBC.Rating came up with the results of Russian banks’ performance in the first half of 2008. In addition to the other research aspects, the agency’s analysts looked into the banks’ advance portfolios and rated the companies on the basis of these and using the credit loss criterion. SKB-Bank was given the 11th position on the list of banks with minimum losses. RBC.Rating reports the bank’s loan portfolio losses were close to zero percent (the actual figure came to about 1 million RUR over January-August 2008). To compile the rating, RBC.Rating’s analysts used off-balance sheet accounts 917 and

According to the Central Bank of Russia, volume of loans given by Tagilbank to non-state for-profit organizations for 91 to 180 days dropped by 67.35% (from 21.44 million RUR to 7 million RUR) in January-August 2008.

Central Bank of Russia reports volume of loans given by Ural Innovational Commercial Bank to for-profit self-regulatory organizations despite current account’s overdraft plummeted by 100% (from 3 million RUR to zero) in January-August 2008.