The Economic News Agency has been asked by Nezavisimaya Gazeta to do a regular research on how efficient the performance of private and public sectors and government deputies is in terms of lobbying projects favorable for certain interest groups. The lobbying in question is the so-called civilized one that does not imply any bribe offers. The latest update on the research was done in September 2009 using the usual method: a few scores of experts had to rank the lobbying efficiency of about 240 candidates using a five-point scale. Among the candidates were entrepreneurs, politicians, and

The number customers of who enjoy using SKB-Bank’s online service popularly known as Couch Bank has exceeded 6,000 people by October 14, 2009, the bank reports. The Couch Bank customers can use the service to transfer rubles into the other banks’ accounts as well as into SKB-Bank’s accounts (this includes both one customer’s various accounts and the accounts of several different customers). They can also get account statements and detailed updates on all the account transactions and are informed about the bank’s deposit and loan offers. ‘It’s very convenient to subscribe to the Couch Bank

Koltso Urala Commercial Bank issued its 100,000th bank card recently. This ‘record-breaking’ card was made for one of Uralelectromed’s workers in Verkhnyaya Pyshma. The employee will now use it to receive the monthly salary payments, the bank’s press officer reports. ‘We did not plan for this card to be issued specifically in Verkhnyaya Pyshma, but it’s certainly nice that the special card was issued in Yekaterinburg’s satellite town. In fact, the salary-paying scheme Uralelectromed and Koltso Urala are working on is one of the bank’s largest card-issuing projects,’ the press officer

Uralfinprombank’s BOD Chairman Ildar Gubayev sold a portion of his share in the bank’s authorized capital, so he now owns a 22.66% shareholding rather than the 58.35% of shares he had earlier. This transaction has meant that L. Levkina and M. Tulyakova, both of whom bought a 17.85% shareholding, are now Uralfinprombank’s new shareholders.

‘Since the demand for air travel is expected to go down this winter, Lufthansa is going to operate fewer flights, especially domestic and European ones,’ the spokesperson for the airline reports. The company’s new timetable provides for 12,406 flights a week, which is 7.4% less than the 13,402 flights operated every week in the winter of 2008. The winter timetable 2009/2010 comes into effect on October 25, 2009 and will be used through March 27, 2010. During the winter season, Lufthansa will operate flights to 191 different destinations in seventy-eight countries (against 194 destinations in

Bank Petrokommerz lost 231.15 million RUR in the third quarter of 2009, whereas only a quarter earlier, it made 259 million RUR worth of profits. The bank says the losses were brought about by the need to build up n the bad debt reserves and the dropping loan interest income (which, in its turn, had to do with the shrinking lending portfolio).