According to the Central bank of Russia, volume of loans given by Sberinvestbank to non-state for-profit organizations for 31 to 90 days had gone down by 90 million RUR (from 90 million RUR to zero) by January 1, 2009.

The Supervisory Board of Bank VTB 24 decided to convert some of its regional subsidiaries into simple operational offices. The decision to this extent involved the bank’s branches in Kazan, Perm, Kemerovo, Cherepovets, Nizhniy Novgorod, and Irkutsk.

Renaissance Credit Commercial Bank suggests that its customers pay off their loans in advance, so that the bank could buy out its own bonds it order to relieve is liabilities burden, Kommersant reports. A number of Renaissance Credit Bank’s borrowers have already received text messages with early payment proposals, while the bank’s hotline clerks explain to all the callers that the interest rate on the existing loans might be raised because of the economic crisis. Incidentally, this would fit in the framework of the loan agreement terms, the newspaper says.

Sberbank of Russia’s Ural branch sold over $60m worth of American Express checks in 2008. This means that these traveler’s checks’ sales have increased by more than nine times over the last five years, while the share of euro checks doubled and now comes to 30% of the total check volume. Traveler’s checks are most often used on trips and during some business transactions carried out abroad (like buying a car or a fur coat), since no limit is set on the amount of money one could carry abroad in the TC format. Then, some customers prefer to keep their savings in the form of traveler’s checks

Ural Airlines has recently gone for a price decrease on Moscow-bound flights. The tickets for flights operated on February 21-24, 2009 and March 7-10, 2009 will be available for only 1,800 RUR (per single ticket, excluding the adjustment rate). The special price is offered on both Yekaterinburg-Moscow and Moscow-Yekaterinburg flights, the company’s press officer reports. Tickets can be booked and bought via the airline’s website ( www.uralairlines.com), at the carrier’s booking offices, and authorized agents’ offices.