Private individuals took out more than 152 million RUR from their deposits in Sverdlovsk Gubernskiy Bank in September 2008. All in all, the bank had 7,575,809,000 RUR in terms of private individuals’ deposit investments on September 1, 2008 and only 7,423,716,000 RUR on October 1, 2008. These data are available from Bank24.ru’s official website.

Private individuals took out more than 956 million RUR from their deposits in Bank Severnaya Kazna in September 2008. All in all, the bank had 20,641,069,000 RUR in terms of private individuals’ deposit investments on September 1, 2008 and only 19,684,671,000 RUR on October 1, 2008. These data are available from Bank24.ru’s official website.

Governor of Chelyabinsk Region Petr Sumin met the heads of the region’s banking and small and medium business communities to discuss the current state of the region’s economy and the federal authorities’ attempts to make the country’s financial system more dependable as well as the things the regional government could do to support the small business. The meeting participants spoke favorably of the Russian Government’s decision to allocate 30 billion RUR to help the small business and said they hoped some portion of this money would be directed to Chelyabinsk Region. In the meantime, an ad

Moody’s, the international rating agency, demoted Bank Severnaya Kazna’s long-term ratings on national and foreign currency deposits from B2 to Caa2 – all that without providing any definite rating outlook, Banki.ru reports. What is more, the bank’s financial stability rating went down from E+ to E, with Stable rating outlook. In the meantime, the agency confirmed Bank Severnaya Kazna’s short-term ratings on national and foreign currency deposits as Not-Prime, whereas Moody’s Interfax Rating Agency decreased the bank’s long-term national scale rating from Baa1.ru to B2.ru. ‘These decisions

Renova-StroyGroup is currently coordinating a tender aimed at finding a general contractor for the construction of blocks 2.1 and 2.1.1 of Yekaterinburg’s future Academic district. This will include putting up apartment building ranging in height from seven to sixteen floors (with all the communications provided) and setting up the entire infrastructure like pedestrian walks, pavements, squares, parking lots, parks and flower beds, street lights, and so on. The construction process is to begin in December 2008 after the tender has been completed. ‘Our long-term economic strategy and the

MOTIV Telecommunications Group is going to make its GPRS roaming services available in a few more countries at the end of October 2008. Staring October 24, 2008, for example, the service will be offered in the Republic of Mauritius (through Emtel Limited). On October 27, 2008, MOTIV’s customers using the GSM standard will be able to use international roaming in Tajikistan (through Indigo Tajikistan CJSC). Finally, Telefónica Móviles España, S.A will start cooperating with MOTIV in Spain on October 29, 2008, MOTIV’s press officer reports.

Bank24.ru’s top managers are asking the bank’s customers to consider the advanced repayment of their credits. The bank’s official website, for example, advertises their special offer: pay off your debt now and don’t worry about the interest rate payments in October. Meanwhile, Bank24.ru keeps applying certain sanctions to customers who want to cash their deposits before the end of the deposit period. The bank’s call center reports in this case a customer has to place an application nearly a month in advance and will only be allowed to take out no more than 10,000 RUR. As far as ATMs and

‘Russian Minister for Agriculture Alexei Gordeev included Chelyabinsk Region in the country’s agricultural areas register, so the South Urals can now take pride in being both an agrarian and an industrial node of this part of Russia,’ Governor of Chelyabinsk Region Petr Sumin said in the course of a ceremony dedicated to honoring the local farmers and processing industry workers. The spokesperson for the Governor reports the region’s agricultural industry has made a real breakthrough over the last decade. Chelyabinsk Region was nearly on the bottom of the country’s Top 30 regions in the 1990s

Dmitriy Loevskiy, who has a deposit at Sverdlovsk Gubernskiy Bank, placed his claims against the bank with the court and the public prosecution authorities on October 23, 2008. He has already sent official letters of complaint regarding the bank’s policy to the Bank of Russia and Rospotrebnadzor (the state consumer rights watchdog) earlier this week. The customer is thus trying to protect his legally supported right to using his own money he keeps in the deposit. Loevskiy placed 3,000,000 RUR onto the bank’s deposit and was planning to use the money to buy an apartment. On October 13, 2008,

Bank24.ru’s introduced the online payments limits of 3,000 RUR on October 22, 2008. In the meantime, the bank’s call center claims the limit comes to 10,000 RUR a day and to 50,000 RUR a month. They couldn’t explain why the official figures differ so much from the system’s actual performance.

Uralfinprombank’s cardholders can now only get 5,000 RUR a day through the bank’s ATMs, the organization’s call center reports. The call center’s employee said to an UrBC reporter that Uralfinprombank’s ATMs only handle the bank’s own cards for the time being. ‘We don’t accept other bank’s cards, only ours,’ he said.

URSA Bank made 150.33 million RUR worth of coupon payments on its fifth bond issue on October 22, 2008, the bank’s press officer reports. The coupon interest rate came to 10.05% a year, so each bond yielded 50.11 RUR in terms of profit. The bank went through with the three-billion-ruble bond issue on October 24, 2006 (file number 40500323 В). The issue was coordinated by Gazprombank and Citibank. The bonds are to be in circulation for five years.

METCOMBANK’s second additional share issue has been registered by the Licensing Department. The spokesperson for the bank reports 1 million shares with the face value of 1,000 RUR each were bought by the bank’s majority shareholder, which means the bank’s authorized capital has doubled and now comes to 2 billion RUR. METCOMBANK last raised its authorized capital on April 24, 2007. ‘The increase in the authorized capital was a pre-planned decision and part of our development strategy that the bank’s stockholders adopted at the end of 2007,’ the spokesperson explains. ‘The doubling of the

Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK), one of Russia’s leading steel manufacturers, retired $300m worth of Eurobonds on October 21, 2008 through MMK Finance S.A. The enterprise went through with the bonds issue in October 2003. The coupon interest rate was determined at 8% a year, so the coupon payments reached $120m by the time the bonds’ circulation period was over. The money obtained through the bond issue was partially used to finance MMK’s investment program. According to MMK Group’s consolidated statement (drawn up in compliance with the US GAAP) for the first half of 2008, MMK’s

‘Banks are already producing redundancy reports. Bank VTB Severo Zapad, for instance, is about to make 189 employees redundant. These are mainly lending experts that were formerly employed in the bank’s subsidiaries,’ says Yekaterinburg Employment Center’s Deputy Director Anatoly Kudryashov. In the meantime, the region’s State Labor Inspection reported as many as twenty-six Sverdlovsk Region-based enterprises had asked a number of people to leave by October 15, 2008.

One of Yekaterinburg’s popular Internet forums where people discuss the banking community’s problems published an unofficial rescue plan for Bank24.ru signed by the bank’s Chairman Sergey Lapshin. The message states Bank 24.ru backed out of the M&A proposals it had been made because the purchasing sums were seen as inadequate by the shareholders. Then, the message author does admit that the bank is having liquidity problems, especially in terms of non-cash resources, and is hoping for the federal authorities’ help. At the same time, the resource shortage and troubles with payment

Bank Severnaya Kazna BOD Chairman Vladimir Frolov admits that a portion of the bank’s shares might be sold to a new large investor. He reports that it is quite possible and that the management has already considered this as an option. ‘We don’t insist on keeping the controlling shareholdings to ourselves any longer. This wouldn’t be a right thing to do. We’ve overcome our own unwillingness and have spoken about the problem with many financial organizations,’ Vladimir Frolov announced in the course of a press confrerence in Yekaterinburg on October 22, 2008. Frolov did admit he had already

‘On the whole, the civil aviation market is having a hard time now: AirUnion is going through bankruptcy proceedings, and a number of other companies I believe will have to quit the market. KrasAir is very close to becoming insolvent as well partly because only 34% of the foreign aircraft the company leases is actually serviceable. As for Ural Airlines, our foreign airplanes serviceability coefficient comet to 86%, which is one of the best results in the branch,’ General Director of Ural Airlines Sergey Skuratov said in the course of a press conference. ‘I feel the leaving carriers’ market

‘Because of the financial crisis, Pnevmostroymachina will have to make 10% of its staff redundant. This means 200 people out of 2000,’ the company’s press officer Yana Dukhnovskaya said to an UrBC reporter. Besides, it has already been announced earlier that Pnevmostroymachina (part of Finpromco partnership) had to introduce a four-day working week, while a portion of the employees might have to leave on vacation on November 1-10, 2008. ‘It’s true that some of our workers will go on a ten-day leave next month. The workers dealing with the machines and equipment won’t be made redundant, since

Sverdlovsk Gubernskiy Bank keeps charging the customers who want to cash their deposits before the end of the deposit period a 20% commission. This is charged in case a customer takes out more than 50,000 RUR, and the fee comes to 20% of the remainder of the sum exceeding this 50,000-ruble limit. The limitations were imposed on October 14, 2008. The spokesperson for the bank claims the main idea behind this measure was to prevent the people from taking their money back ahead of time en masse.