URSA Bank paid its investors 209.4 million RUR worth of coupon yield on the bank’s seventh bond issue. The bank went through with this five-billion-ruble bond issue (serial number 40700323 В) on July 26, 2007; the bonds are to be in circulation for five years. The issue was coordinated by Renaissance Capital and Deutsche Bank. The coupon yield was determined by the 8.4% annual interest rate (41.88 RUR per each bond).

The Central Bank of Russia reports 1,246 counterfeit banknotes were confiscated within the country in the last quarter of 2008, of which 1,163 bills were U.S. dollars, 72 banknotes were euros, seven bills were Chinese Renminbi yuans, and four bills were UK pounds sterling.

The Ural Bank for Reconstruction and Development was able to raise its assets by 31.4%, so these now amount to 50.33 billion RUR. The bank’s balance sheet total reached 71.42 billion RUR on January 1, 2009 (which was 79% better than a year earlier). The customers’ account balance exceeded 29.44 billion RUR last year, while the private individuals’ deposit volume increased up to 20.48 billion RUR. ‘Our end-of-year performance results make it obvious that, despite the microeconomic difficulties, the bank keeps on successfully implementing its chosen strategy and expands the business through

‘Under the circumstances (that is, under the current liquidity crisis) most builders are in and because of the plummeting prices, all the plans related to putting up suburban cottages have been postponed by about a year. This includes, for instance, Snegiri cottage district; then, the construction of River Park Club in the countryside has been put off indefinitely, whereas the whole concept of the building had to be reconsidered because of the current economic problems. The same is true of many other projects. The construction of a cottage district in Priozerniy hasn’t even been started yet,

‘Our financial recovery plan targeted at helping Bank Severnaya Kazna included a detailed analysis which resulted in the decision to close down seven of the bank’s offices because they showed complete lack of profits over this and last periods,’ Alfa-Bank’s representative said to an UrBC reporter. Six of Bank Severnaya Kazna’s (now the asset of Alfa-Bank) offices located in Sverdlovsk Region are to stop operating in the nearest future. Four of these are based in Yekaterinburg; one office is located in Kamensk-Uralskiy, and one more in Pervouralsk. In addition, one more office stopped