‘Bank Severnaya Kazna does not have and never had any credit cards,’ Alfa Bank’s Chairman Rushan Khvesyuk announced in the course of an online press conference today. ‘What the bank did have was the bank cards with an overdraft limit; these were no credit cards, in fact. Now, however, any customer can get Alfa Bank’s full-fledged credit cards at the bank,’ he added. Nevertheless, the Chairman’s statements contradict Bank Severnaya Kazna’s official data. The latter announced the launch of its credit card lending program as early as 2004. The classic credit cards and credit cards with a grace

URSA Bank’s Personal Finance University welcomes all the ‘golden age’ retirees interested in enhancing their financial literacy. The lectures and seminars will be given on the premises of Veterans’ Councils, universities and Retirement Fund’s departments in the Ural and Siberian cities on December 15-23, 2008. In the course of their lectures, the bank’s experts are to tell the attendees about the current state of the country’s banking system, clever savings management, handling money orders, and using bank cards. URSA Bank has been offering its Personal Finance University workshop to the

‘Over 100 tons of Irish pork poisoned with dioxin happened to be delivered into various Russian regions. Yekaterinburg received the lion’s share of this meat, that is, 98 tons. Russia was one of the countries to get the greatest amounts of poisoned pork,’ says head Gennady Onischenko, head of Rospotrebnadzor (the state consumer rights watchdog). Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI) reported on December 6, 2008 that their lab tests of feeding stuff and lard samples carried out on September 1, 2008 revealed enormous dioxin content in both. The amount of poison in the samples exceeded the

Probusinessbank’s extraordinary general meeting resulted in the decision to approve of the subordinate loan the bank might take from East Capital Financials Fund AB. The loan would amount to 624.89 million RUR that the bank will have to pay back over a five-year period alongside with the 12% annual interest rate. According to the terms of the transaction, the subordinate loan agreement can be converted in registered common stock at a price of 2,145 RUR per share, should the creditor want this. The creditor is allowed to apply for the conversion within three years of signing the loan