‘A lot of water will have passed under the bridge by February 2009 when UralTransBank will allegedly get the loan. In fact, only very few regional banks manage to attract some European money successfully, so the bank Chairman’s claim might only serve to calm the customers who have been disturbed by the market situation,’ says FPG Neva’s Yekaterinburg branch’s director Alexei Pozdeev.

UralTransBank’s Chairman Valeriy Zavodov said in the course of several interviews that the bank intended to get a syndicated loan on the international capital market in February or March 2009. Zavodov explained the company was interested in a three-year loan worth 1 billion RUR at least and needed it to improve UralTransBank’s rating.

‘In terms of feasibility, getting such a loan is definitely possible but the cost of borrowing might be a problem. On the other hand, getting a large European bank or financial organization to have a share in your capital gives one a lot of impressive advantages. All this actually makes one think UralTransBank might be having problems, but this is hard to check given the market’s general inquietude,’ Pozdeev notes.