‘Large federal banking networks normally merge and launch a re-branding campaign in order to become more easily recognized. This brand recognition determines the ‘penetration level’ essential to the market competition. Another reason to opt for re-branding is getting ready for a public offering of the bank’s shares,’ reports the General Director of Blagodat Securities Investment Company Vsevolod Chaschin on the re-branding campaigns by some Russian banks. When they do re-branding, the banks hope to hit a particular target audience, a group of clients who reflect the new bank’s strategy. Times

‘The increase in the excise duty might lead to the shortage of cheap tobacco produce,’ the Merchandise Expert of Megamart Trade Center Andrei Kholmanskikh said to UrBC representative, commenting on the excise duty stamps becoming more expensive starting January 1, 2007. ‘This may happen due to the fact that some of the producers will fail to switch to the new stamping,’ Mr Kholmanskikh observed. ‘There is little our trade center can do on its own: if the suppliers manage to do everything on time, we’ll have no shortage,’ he noted.

According to the Bank of Russia, the Russian crediting organizations have issued 1,797,000,000,000 RUR worth of consumer loans by October 1, 2006, of which 85% are the ruble loans. This means that the ruble loans are currently six times more popular than the foreign currency ones. According to the Central Bank of Russia, the most popular kinds of loans are the ruble ones given for a term of six months to 1 year (the number of such loans is three times greater than that of the loans given for a term of over 3 years). Today, crediting is the most dynamically developing banking product.

‘The investigation of HydroSpetsStroy (the general contractor of Noviy Grad, the developer) activity is still going on,’ the Head of the Investigative Division of the department of internal affairs in Yekaterinburg (Leninskiy District) Irina Overina said to UrBC representative. ‘We have seized their accounting documents and searched their office, so now we have some new data for the inquiry. The information is now being processed,’ Ms Overina said. The Department commenced criminal action against the General Director of Noviy Grad Yuri Repeta on May 22, 2006.

According to the Central Bank of Russia, the volume of loans given by UralTransBank to natural persons for a term of 181 days to 1 year went down by 29.7% (from 513,314,000 RUR to 360,434,000 RUR) in January-November 2006.

‘We need new ways of providing financial services to our customers,’ President of Association of Regional Russian Banks and State Duma Deputy Anatoliy Aksakov announced at the opening ceremony of All-Russian Financial E-office Forum. ‘Also, we should develop the network of small financial enterprises and credit cooperatives dealing in giving micro-loans to individual customers. It would be good to use post offices located in Russia’s every large village. E-banking, e-insurance, and other e-services are another important field, hindered, however, by the fact that all insurance agreements must

‘The further the ROSNO-UralTransBank conflict unwinds, the harder it is to hit the reputation of both parties and that of the financial market on the whole. There is nothing whatsoever positive about two regional and even federal brands being stuck in a controversy of such sort. The reason for this lies, most likely, in the underperformance of the legal experts who initially drew up the contracts. This conflict could have been avoided if these contracts contained certain points,’ claims Investments Director of Management Company CJSC Alexander Metzger. The dispute between ROSNO Insurance

‘Retailers’ combining against Panasonic has nothing to do with us. Our shops don’t sell DECT-standard phones, the ones that Panasonic mainly produces. This company officially stopped supplying its GSM-phones in Russia one year ago, so we don’t have those either,’ the Commercial Director of Simphonia retail chain Andrei Starodubtsev said to UrBC representative. Russia’s largest retail chains dealing in consumer electronics (EuroSet, Svyaznoy, Eldorado, M.Video, TechnoSila, and Mir) came up with a statement accusing Panasonic of supplying illegally produced or imported appliances that do not

A subsidiary of SKB-Bank was set up right in the centre of the town, at 72 Svobody St. in Chelyabinsk. ‘All the banking services for both businesses and individual clients are available at this new office. The residents of Chelyabinsk will probably be interested in the loan schemes that are already popular with people of Yekaterinburg, such as Loan for a Friend and Loan for Buddies, as well as our mortgage offers and deposit schemes (The Simple Decision and The Multiplication Table),’ said the Director of the subsidiary V. Putin. This subsidiary is SKB-Bank’s 52nd Russian office, alongside

The Honorary Consulate of the Republic of Austria was opened in Yekaterinburg on December 7, 2006. The ceremony was attended by Martin Vukovitch, the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Austria to Russia, reports the press officer for the Governor of Sverdlovsk Region. This is Austria’s second Honorary Consulate in Russia, and it is going to service Sverdlovsk, Chelyabinsk, Kurgan, and Tyumen Regions as well as Khanty-Mansiysk and Yamalo-Nenetsk Autonomous Regions. The commodity turnover between Sverdlovsk Region and Austria has increased by over 60% in the nine

‘Re-branding campaigns carried out by banks are becoming more and more common. The re-branding of a bank must result in management that is more effective and be both client- and employee-oriented,’ says Natalia Kungurova of Mediator Ltd. ‘Re-branding as such is not something done for its own sake any longer; rather, it is the indispensable component of the bank’s economic policy, such as a merger or a takeover. Judging by the recent campaigns, the quality of re-branding gets better every year, and we can already see the results of the wise economic and marketing steps of some banks,’ Ms

‘We’ve been successfully cooperating with MegaFon Ural, the mobile phone operator, for a few years now,’ the General Director of Agava Ltd. Georgiy Erman said to UrBC representative. ‘This mobile operator provides reliable connection all over Russia; we also like it that they are offering hi-tech extra services that can positively influence the development of a business,’ Mr Erman observed.

A new office of Sverdlovsk Gubernskiy Bank started operating in Yekaterinburg on December 7, 2006. This is the bank’s eleventh subsidiary in this city, based at 70 Lenin Ave. All the banking services for both businesses and individual clients are available at the new office that has all the advanced banking equipment needed to serve the clients quickly and efficiently. The bank’s experts are ready to give their clients professional advice in terms of all kinds of loans and deposits as well as to provide more information on the special offers for businesses. There are currently 18 offices of

‘Magnesite Industrial Complex has been working at almost full power lately; we’ve reached the point of our maximal potential, and it will therefore be difficult for the company to hit the 10% growth of production output (which has been the case for the last four years) in 2007. On the other hand, we’ve gone for the product diversification,’ the company’s General Director Igor Anikievitch said in the course of a meeting of local investors with acting Governor of Chelyabinsk Region Andrei Kosilov; the meeting was conducted within the framework of VI Ural Investment Forum. ‘The quality of our

‘The co-branding project turned out to be unprofitable because, as a lot of experts (for instance, the representatives of international payment systems) had warned, the target audience for this service was based in the regions,’ the analyst from BrokerCreditService Denis Mukhin said to UrBC representative relating to the decision of the Baltic Bank to stop servicing the co-branding Gold Crown MasterCard cards. ‘The international payment systems have tended to decrease their tariffs recently, so, in terms of the future, the share of the Russian payment systems will be gradually going down, and

The company produced 262,000 tons of coal in November 2006, including 67,100 tons of coal taken from Kapitalnaya mine and 30,000 tons taken from Komsomolskaya mine. The company’s workers performed 414,000 cubic meters worth of overburden operations and did 475 meters worth of development work, the company’s spokesperson said to UrBC representative.

The conflict of ROSNO and UralTransBank has still not been settled. ‘This is a situation of somewhat delicate nature, and it is difficult to define where the good and the bad guys are. I personally think that ROSNO’s accusing the bank of fraud is beyond the scope of business ethics. One has to be absolutely positive about a claim like this if one wants to avoid being sued for slander and having to publicly apologize afterwards,’ the Assets Management Director of Unicom Partner Investment and Finance Company Vitaliy Kalugin said to UrBC representative. ‘I believe this public dispute stems from

‘We used to do business with Hydrospetsstroy (the general contractor of Noviy Grad Construction Holding), yet we never got the money for the job in full,’ Sergey Suschiy, the Chief Engineer of Antalex Ltd., said to UrBC representative. ‘Our company acted as a subcontractor in a project coordinated by Hydrospetsstroy. We had to do a number of things that had not been included in the agreement, and Technadzor, the building authority, testified the completion of the jobs. However, we were not paid for working extra, with the missing sum coming to 20% of the total amount of money we were supposed

Uralvneshtorgbank summed up the results of its activity in the eleven months of 2006. The bank’s balance sheet total came to 33.14bn RUR on December 1, 2006, which exceeds the figures for January-November 2005 by 102%. Its profits and the authorized capital amounted to 1,094m RUR and 742m RUR, respectively; the bank’s equity basis rose by 166% and thus came to 2,904m RUR. The volume of investments on the deposits went up 90% compared with the eleven months of 2005 and reached the point of 16.2bn RUR, including 8.5bn RUR placed with the bank by private clients, reports the press officer for