In June 2008, over 1 billion RUR worth of loan payments were made through Sberbank’s Ural branch’s ATMs and transaction terminals. All in all, over 30% of payments (including the paying off of loans) to the bank are generally made with the use of ATMs; moreover, the ATMs can be used for paying one’s phone and housing bills. The machines can handle cards and cash, the bank’s press officer reports. ‘These self-service devices are becoming increasingly popular with our customers. We intend to promote them further by setting up more ATMs in the most convenient places,’ Sberbank’s Ural branch’s

A new sports ground was introduced in Severouralsk within the framework of UC RUSAL’s Social Welfare Project Center’s grant program. The 250,000-ruble grant finances the Sports Summer project – the winner of the Center’s contest, UC RUSAL’ press officer in the Urals Roman Lukichev reports. The Sports Summer project provides for both the introduction of a sports ground for games and competition and for the organizations of sporting events. One hundred and eight children who are currently spending their holidays in a summer camp nearby practice there on a daily basis now. ‘The program will run

Central Bank of Russia reports volume of loans given by Bank24.ru to private individuals for 1 to 3 years went down by 12.95% (from 314.232 million RUR to 273.536 million RUR) in January-June 2008.

Expert-Ural, the center for business analytics, came up with a report on the Urals and Western Siberia’s lending markets performance in the first half of 2008. The analysts report the Ural consumer lending market rose by 12.9% between January 1, 2008 and June 1, 2008 (compared with the 20.6% growth a year earlier), SKB-Bank’s press officer reports. The center compiled a rating of the Urals and Western Siberia’s twenty-five largest banks and major players on the consumer lending market. SKB-Bank, with its 13.4 billion RUR worth of loans to private individuals in the first half of 2008 (26.7%

The Ural Bank for Reconstruction and Development raised the number of its bank cards by 18.4% in the first half of 2008, so the figure now comes to 475,262,000 cards. The number of Visa cards went up by 24.3%, the number of MasterCard ones went up by 2%. The bank’s Bank Card Technologies Director Yulia Vasina explains the increase in the number of MasterCard bank cards they issued did not increase dramatically because most new cards the bank offered to its customers were Visa ones. ‘There are several reasons for Visa to be so popular, the main one being a united ATM network with over 500

‘The Czech entrepreneurs don’t often have a very hard time in Sverdlovsk Region. Yekaterinburg’s municipal council and Sverdlovsk Region Government are interested in cooperating with our business community and they do their best to make this cooperation work,’ Jan Krs from the Czech Consulate in Yekaterinburg said to UrBC. ‘At the same time, we don’t get as much support from the federal authorities. The lion’s share of difficulties our businesspeople are faced with is related to customs checks. The thing is, quite a few parts of Russia, including Sverdlovsk Region, haven’t had much contact

Central Bank of Russia reports volume of for-profit self-regulatory organizations’ deposits in Sverdlovsk Gubernskiy Bank valid for 91 to 180 days went down by 34.45% (from 60.002 million RUR to 39.327 million RUR) in January-June 2008.

UC RUSAL’s Bogoslovskiy smelter started working on some large treads and protectors meant for anticorrosion protection of an international gas pipeline located on the bottom of the Kara Sea. Over 74 tons of protectors have to be made within the first order, UC RUSAL’s press officer for Ural Federal District Roman Lukichev reports. The protectors are made from aluminum alloys; the produce has been certified, awarded with the quality seal, and is believed to outstrip its foreign counterparts in some respects. Bogoslovskiy smelter has already taken part in the construction of oil and gas

According to the Central Bank of Russia, volume of for-profit self-regulatory organizations’ deposits in Uralprivatbank valid for 1 to 3 years went down by 21.21% (from 355.95 million RUR to 280.45 million RUR) in January-June 2008.

Sberbank’s Ural branch’s private individual loan portfolio has increased by 16.7 billion RUR since the beginning of the year and reached 100 billion RUR, while the share of bad debt only amounted to .6%, which means the bank’s loan portfolio is a good quality one. ‘Sberbank’s Ural branch keeps building up on the loans given to private individuals and is now one of the regional market’s major players. Sberbank of Russia started offering loans to private customers as early as 1998, and we managed to both deserve and live up to people’s trust and expectations,’ says Sberbank’s Ural branch’s

‘The name of the supermarket that is going to replace Grossmart in Yekaterinburg’s Park House Mall is to be announced at the end of July or early August 2008,’ reports Ilona Starodubtseva, the spokeswoman for Deputy Mayor of Yekaterinburg Viktor Konteev. In June 2008, Grossmart cut down on the assortment of products it offered; in addition, a number of shelves were dismantled, so customers assumed the store was about to close down. Prior to this, RTM, a developer business, made a number of Grossmart stores in Krasnoyarsk, Tula, and Saint Petersburg stop working due to a clash over the rent.

Central Bank of Russia reports volume of loans given by Bank Uralfinance to private individuals for up to 30 days plummeted by 100% (from 1.15 million RUR to zero) in January-June 2008.

One’s Private Office is now available via Ural Airlines’ official website. After one goes through the site registration, one can save a lot of time when booking the carrier’s tickets online. To get a site account, a user has to fill in the data such as their name and ID number, their gender, citizenship, DOB, their Wings Travel Club membership number, the way they’d like to get their tickets (the delivery address or the name of the booking office where the tickets would be picked up), and the bank address and account number for non-cash transactions. All these data will be saved and used for

‘We believe that some agencies responsible for recruiting foreign workers, taking them to Russia, and providing them with the social safety net as well as all the necessary papers will be set up in Sverdlovsk Region soon. Such agencies are most likely to become private entities,’ Sverdlovsk Region’s division of Federal Migration Service’s Director for Immigration Control Alexander Biruykov reports. ‘The project is now considered by the State Duma and will probably be approved of soon,’ he adds.

‘We cannot provide any comments at the moment; no sales agreement has been signed so far, and I believe the whole thing might take up to a month to get through with,’ says Demidov Business Center’s press officer Oleg Zemtsov. In the meantime, Ural Mining & Metallurgical Company (UMMC) is rumored to have bought 50% of KlaasStroy’s shares (the latter being Demidov’s current developer). The business center’s representatives denied any chance of their signing a contract with UMMC as early as July 8, 2008. They claimed UMMC was not investing anything in the construction process and never

According to the National Managers’ League’s profitability ranking of unit investment trusts as of July 17, 2008, the share price of BCS Bank Share Fund (BrokerCreditService Management Company) has gone down by 24.99% since the beginning of the year.

The Federal Antimonopoly Service coordinated a meeting with executives from its territorial divisions devoted to the pricing policies of Russian airports’ fuel stations. The Service determined as early as the spring of 2008 that jet fuel prices were greater than most foreign airports asked for in a whole number of Russian regions. On June 1, 2008, the Service’s territorial divisions in twenty different parts of Russia were asked to check what airports had the greatest fuel prices and to take some antimonopoly measures before August 1, 2008. For one, two lawsuits, one involving LUKoil AERO and

Yekaterinburgnefteprodukt and LukoilPermnefteprodukt might have to pay 1% to 5% of their sales revenues in fines after Sverdlovsk Region division of Federal Antimonopoly Service found them guilty of a price collusion and insisted on the two companies stopping their violations of the antimonopoly legislation. Both enterprises will have to face administrative lawsuits and pay a fine.

Your Way to the Future: this is the name of one of Visa Gold’s designs created especially for Visa International by Mariomi. This design won the first prize in the course of the high fashion week in Moscow, while the Ural Bank for Reconstruction and Development got the exclusive right over the design in the spring of 2008. ‘Bearing in mind that the image has a big part to play in the way premium bank cards are perceived and that the image is closely connected with design, we thought of changing our cards’ appearance completely. Design is as important as additional services, so it must be

‘We cannot provide any comments as to the construction process and the terms of commissioning Nakhimov Plaza at the moment. The company stopped working on this trade and office center,’ Aston Group’s PR Manager Polina Bulanova said to UrBC. ‘The management of the building and the sales of offices are currently being handled by Gormonolitstroy, the developer,’ she explained.