‘Some administrative quarrels between two parties cooperating under an agreement will occur every once in while, yet this case is quite unique in that these parties got the Association of Regional Russian Banks and the Federal Insurance Surveillance Agency involved in their conflict for no apparent reason. These authorities do not facilitate the conflict resolution and only breed extra rumors; the only thing they can do is provide moral justification for one of the parties involved but no tangible support. Moreover, they also create the unnecessary hype around the issue,’ the Director of the

‘We deal with cases connected with the unscrupulous actions of insurance companies quite often: at least a dozen claims are laid against them every year. Our guild, for instance, has had to tackle cases involving such insurers as Gamma, Rosgosstrakh, and Yugoria,’ Ludmila Mekhontseva of the regional Lawyers’ Guild said to UrBC representative. ‘Most claims have to do with the obligatory car insurance and hull insurance following some car accidents when the insurance companies allegedly do the following: firstly, they reduce the repair expenses figures and the cost of replacing the car parts;

A public meeting of the Association of Regional Russian Banks Coordination Committee consisting of the Association executives from the federal districts and Russian Federation subjects was held in Yekaterinburg today. The meeting was devoted to the methods and ways of banking activities consolidation and to the recent trends and potential of this field of banking business. The meeting was attended by Anatoliy Aksakov, the President of the Association, Alexander Stroganov (Vice President), Alexander Khandruev (First Vice President), Deputy Chairman of Ural Bankers’ Union Evgeniy Bolotin, and

Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Eduard Rossel and the Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin met to discuss the regional building and housing industry development and Academic construction project. This is an interesting project meant for providing homes to 350,000 people. According to the Governor, this district will represent the new concept of a comfortable life, as the project covers the infrastructure development and construction of trade centers and entertainment facilities. This new district is to appear in the south-west of Yekaterinburg and is expected to occupy 2,500 hectares of

Bank information and reference bulletin published a report on the activity of Sverdlovsk Region banks in the first half of 2006. According to this report, the dynamics of the banks’ own and debt capital have led to a decrease in self-financing (from 44.1% at the beginning of this year to 40.8% by the end of June 2006). The banks experienced no equity shortage in terms of fixed assets in the six months of 2006; on average, their own capital exceeded the fixed assets figures by 17% on June 30, 2006 (compared with 8% at the beginning of the year).

‘Our company has been using MegaFon Ural, the mobile phone operator, for four years,’ says Tatiana Moiseeva, the representative of Global System Mobile Club. ‘We like this company’s far-sighted policy; it is quite obvious that MegaFon Ural manages to keep up with the most recent trends in its field. The schemes it offers to businesses allow us to reduce our cell phone communication expenses by a few times, especially in terms of roaming and GPRS services,’ Ms Moiseeva said.

Existing home sales got past the psychological point of the average of 70,997 RUR per square meter in the center of Yekaterinburg (i.e. in Moskovskaya St., Chelyuskintsy St., Vostochnaya St., Dekabristy St., Belinskiy St., and Bolshakov St.) on November 28, 2006, reports the Analytical Department of the Ural Chamber of Real Estate. The figure comes to 64,575 RUR in Yekaterinburg’s most expensive residential area (Avtovokzal, Yugo-Zapadniy, Parkoviy, Botanicheskiy, Vtuzgorodok, Shartashskiy, ZhBI – downtown and the south-west and the south-east of the city), to 57,233 RUR in the city’s second

According to the Central Bank of Russia, the volume of loans given by UralTransBank to nongovernmental commercial organizations for a term of 91 to 180 days went down by 55.5% (from 278.905m RUR to 124.032m RUR) in January-November 2006.

VympelCom (Beeline), the mobile phone operator, has made some personnel shifts in its Ural branch. Former Commercial Director of VympelCom in the Ural Region Andrei Pyatakhin was appointed Corporate Sales Director in the company’s Moscow branch. He was succeeded by the former Commercial Director of VympelCom Yekaterinburg Evgeniya Grishina, who is now acting Commercial Director of VympelCom in the Ural Region.

The dispute between two administrative bodies, namely, ROSNO, the insurance company, and UralTransBank, keeps unwinding. The bank accused the insurer of failing to meet its liabilities in terms of compensation payments related to credit insurance. The bank also claimed that ROSNO never provided any well-grounded explanations as to why they kept refusing to pay the bank. ROSNO, on its part, accuses UralTransBank of failing to produce the papers needed to get the compensation despite the existing agreements. Moreover, the insurer says that the bank was trying to receive several payments for one

‘I normally deal with five to six cases involving claims against insurance companies connected with obligatory car insurance annually,’ Galina Nizen of Offer Law Firm said to UrBC representative. ‘Right after this type of insurance was introduced, I handled two cases involving Rosgosstrakh where the company had reduced the compensation payment figure at its own will. The car owner got an independent commission of experts to examine the case and produced the report that stated the sum of money needed to repair the car. Yet Rosgosstrakh lowered the figure by 70%. Later on, our firm dealt with

The Association of Regional Russian Banks tried to draw the attention of the Federal Insurance Surveillance Agency to the issue of consumer loan-related financial risk insurance for the banks. Their letter to the Agency said that since April 2006, ROSNO, an insurance company, had not been meeting its liabilities concerning the general agreement signed by its Ural branch and UralTransBank: the bank received neither compensation nor any well-grounded justification of refusal in any of the events insured against. The appeal of UralTransBank claims that ROSNO is letting down not only its clients

SKB-Bank has recently introduced a new subsidiary in the town of Verkhnyaya Salda, Sverdlovsk Region. The office is located right in the center of the city (73 Engels St.). Verkhnesaldinskiy office, as it is called, offers the whole range of banking services for both businesses and individuals. The natural persons are welcomed from 9 AM to 7 PM on weekdays and from 9 AM to 4 PM on weekends, the working hours for businesses and sole traders are from 9 AM to 4 PM on weekdays (there is no lunch break). Verkhnyaya Salda is the 21st regional town to get an SKB-Bank office. The bank owns 51

According to the Central Bank of Russia, the volume of loans given by UralTransBank to nongovernmental commercial organizations for a term of 31 to 90 days went down by 46.8% (from 259,966,000 RUR to 138,045,000 RUR) in January-November 2006.

The number of the so-called ‘dacha amnesty’ applications went up in November 2006, says the executive of Federal Registration Service Administration in Sverdlovsk Region Marina Cherkasova. According to Ms Cherkasova, they got relatively few dacha registration applications in September or October. ‘We expect these figures to soar in December, as the registration fee dropped from 500 RUR to 100 RUR on the first of the month,’ she said.

Starting December 4, 2006, the Affordable loan scheme became available to more people in Sverdlovsk Region, namely, to the residents of Mozhga (in the subsidiary of Uralvneshtorgbank at 86 Nagovitsin St.), Solikamsk (in the subsidiary at 34 Uritskiy St.), Tchaikovsky (the bank’s Loan Office at 36 Lenin St.), and to people living in the villages of Foki, Markovskiy, and Prikamskiy (Loan Office in Tchaikovsky). The residents of Lysva, Chusovoi, Lipovaya, Zaimka, Bolshaya Lysva, Obmanka 1 and Obmanka 2, Dubrovo, and Sokol can receive this loan at the bank’s Lysvenskiy subsidiary located at 33

‘In the very near future, the building market is going to experience a problem of insuring the buildings under construction,’ says the General Director of the Union of Sverdlovsk Region Builders Vitaliy Padchin. ‘The WTO requirements state that every used construction site must be insured, yet our insurers are not prepared to work on such terms. Even though they declare that they have this possibility, the insurance fee of 1% off the total sum of the building and assembly jobs is too large a sum. It absolutely must be reduced, given especially that after the cancellation of the licensing

‘Most likely, the disappearance of Hortiza and Myagkov from the market won’t influence the alcohol sales volume,’ the Advertising and PR Director of Kupets Trade Center Ltd. Nadezhda Buriko said to UrBC representative when asked to comment on the statement made by the head or Rospotrebnadzor (the federal consumer rights organization) Gennadiy Onischenko about the possible bans on importing Ukrainian alcohol. ‘We’ll start looking for other options, since no one has banned the foreign and Russian producers so far,’ Ms Buriko explained. ‘This ban on Ukrainian alcohol certainly means lobbying the

‘The process of Russia joining the World Trade Organization requires some protectionist policy for the machine building enterprises on the part of the government,’ First Deputy GD of Ust Katav Wagon Works Viktor Krasavin said to UrBC representative. ‘Some 50% to 60% of the equipment, buildings, and machining facilities of the companies operating in this field are quite worn-out, so our enterprises will have a very hard time competing with their Western counterparts; in fact, this might be virtually impossible,’ Mr Krasavin claims. ‘Some large enterprises are more protected as they receive the

‘The introduction of the new bills that make it easier for the foreign investors to get involved in the Russian banks’ capital must be accompanied by two things simultaneously: firstly, this country’s banking system needs to become more liberalized, as the Central Bank keeps receiving a lot of unfavorable critique in terms of lacking any positive shifts in that respect, which actually means lacking capitalization opportunities. At the moment, we neither deal with the capitalization ourselves nor allow any foreign parties to do it. Secondly, Russia is about to enter the WTO, so the bills of