Standard & Poor's, the international rating agency, had to demote the Russian Gazprombank’s counterparty’s long-term and short-term credit ratings from BBB-/A-3 to ВВ+/В; the Rating Outlook dropped to Negative. At the same time, Gazprombank’s national scale rating was affirmed at ruAA+. ‘This rating demotion has to do with the bank’s weakened solvency through lower capitalization and a dramatic decrease in profits after a recent massive loss on trading transactions. What is more, the Russian economy on the whole has slowed down recently. Then, the risk level was enhanced by the

The income taxation mechanism for ruble deposits was changed on January 1, 2009. Most of the interest rates offered on ruble deposits won’t be liable to taxation any longer and the income tax would only be charged if the annual interest rate on the deposit exceeds the Bank of Russia’s refinancing rate by 5%. As for the refinancing rate, this comes to 13% at the moment, so any ruble deposit with annual interest rate of less than 18% isn’t to be taxed at all. ‘At the same time, the income taxation mechanisms for foreign currency deposits will remain the same. As for the ruble ones, the

The district’s public prosecution authorities for transport issues looked into the results of their performance in 2008. ‘In case of revealed arrears of wages, our officials took steps to make sure the money is paid. A lot of claims (totaling to 1.61 million RUR) were placed with the local courts, and we managed to win all of these cases,’ the spokesperson for the public prosecution authorities for transport issues says. ‘Last October, we checked the compliance of Sverdlovsk Region Railways and South Ural Railways with the security regulations related to transportation of hazardous freight.

‘Since the financial crisis broke out, we had to decrease the amount of loans offered to private entities. The reasons for this are obvious: the back payment just cannot be guaranteed. Unfortunately, it is not always possible at the moment to calculate whether a certain company is able of paying the loan off in due time. This does not mean, however, that we stopped offering loans to businesses altogether. Quite on the contrary, we are still prepared to meet our credit-solvent customers’ needs in full. All the strategic partners the bank has developed a long-term financial relationship with

Ural Airlines came up with results of their special offer targeted at customers who paid for their airplane tickets using Yandex.Money system. According to the terms of the offer, every tenth customer who used the system would be entitled to free Internet connection and cable TV hookup as well as three months of prepaid cable TV viewing and Internet traffic (provided by Stream Yekaterinburg). The first prize-awarding ceremony took place in November, the second one in December 2008. The second time, prizes were given to Denis Anferov, Andrey Korskanov, Ian Kasimov, Yuri Spiridonov, Andrey

Sverdlovsk Region Court of Arbitration is to appoint CIT Capital’s trustee in bankruptcy and to decide on the terms of the company’s bankruptcy proceedings on January 16, 2009 The court declared CIT Capital insolvent on December 27, 2008 after the debtor placed an application with the court explaining the sum of their liabilities came to more than 3.982 billion RUR and that they owed their creditors 16.708 million RUR worth of compulsory payments. What is more, 42.343 million RUR worth of claims laid against CIT Capital had been placed with numerous courts of general jurisdiction and

Sberbank’s Ural branch in Kurgan gave out prizes to the winners of the bank’s special offer lottery called ‘Time to Shop with Sberbank of Russia’. All of the bank’s cardholders who used those to pay for at least 300 RUR worth of shopping or services by their bank card in September and October 2008 were automatically placed on the potential prize-winners list. At the end of the offer, 200 customers of Sberbank’s Ural branch in Kurgan received 300 RUR in their bank card accounts. ‘Andrey Popov was definitely the most frequent bank card user, as he paid for over fifty purchases by his card.

Koltsovo Airport’s latest extraordinary general meeting resulted in the election of a new Board of Directors consisting of nine people. These are: Dmitriy Logunov, Ekaterina Lyakhova, Alexander Misharin, Evgeniy Olkhovik, Anatoly Pchelin, Vladimir Tasun, Nikolai Ulyanov, Evgeniy Chudnovskiy, and Andrey Shtorkh. Apart from electing the new BOD, the stockholders refused to approve of the joint stock company’s new Charter.

Last December, SKB-Bank’s official website conducted a survey on people’s forecasts as to the U.S. dollar exchange rate on January 1, 2009. 790 respondents took part in the survey in six days, with the dollar rate coming to 27.8 RUR on the first day of the survey (December 13, 200) and fluctuating within .2 to .3 RUR range during the other five days. The Bank of Russia’s official dollar exchange rate was determined at 29.39 RUR on the first day of the year, while the number of those surveyed by SKB-Bank who managed to get the figure close enough was only 5%. The majority of respondents

‘Our customers started converting their ruble deposits into foreign currency ones (which led to a drop in the former and an increase in the latter) due to the growing dollar and euro exchange rates. One could suppose this trend is to continue this year until the main cause of the rate fluctuations is present – that is, the weakening of the ruble against the dollar and the euro,’ Rus-Bank-Ural’s Market Analysis Director Konstantin Yushkov said to an UrBC reporter. In the meantime, the ruble rate keeps going down against the U.S. dollar, which has been causing a decrease in the volume of ruble

Rus-Rating confirmed VUZ-Bank’s rating at BB-, with Indefinite Rating Outlook. The agency’s chief analyst Victoria Belozerova believes the bank’s current status’s strengths are the obvious support from Life Group’s key Probusinessbank (which has enough potential to aid VUZ-Bank financially even under current trying circumstances), the bank’s rather impressive share of the regional market, and lack of resource and liquidity dependence on the country’s interbank loan market. ‘At the same time, VUZ-Bank’s stability might be shattered because of possible greater resource dependence in terms of

The Ural Bank for Reconstruction and Development-finance (the Ural Bank for Reconstruction and Development’s 100% daughter enterprise) paid 25,243,245.72 RUR on its second issue’s bond’s 10th coupon on January 11, 2009. 31.16 RUR was paid per each 1,000 RUR bond (at 12.5% annual interest rate). It was determined by the issuer that the coupon yield for 9th to 12th coupons would come to 12.5% a year, or 31.16 RUR per each 1,000 RUR bond. The coupon payments on the 11th coupon are to be made on April 2, 2009; those for the 12th coupon are to be made on July 2, 2009, alongside with the retirement

Russian Trading System’s securities trading volume totaled to $13.7bn (385.7 billion RUR) in December 2008, including all kinds of transactions, even off-exchange ones. Gazprom’s (GAZP) common stock topped the stock market’s turnover rating with its $46.7m worth of transactions, followed by Sberbank of Russia’s (SBER) $46.6m worth of common stock deals, and the common stock of LUKOIL (LKOH) with its $22.2m worth of transactions in December 2008. These companies’ market shares thus came to 22.99%, 22.97%, and 10.92%, respectively. URALSIB’s (USBN) common stock soared by 100% (up to $.006) and

URSA Bank made $7.8m worth of coupon payments on its LPN bond issue coupons. The coupon yield was determined at the interest rate of 12% a year. The bank went through with its $130m LPN Eurobond issue on June 27, 2006. The bonds are to be in circulation for five years. Ireland-based Sibacadem finance PLC was the issuer, with coordination by Barclays Capital.

Ural Airlines is already offering its customers tickets to the popular summer holiday destinations in the south of Russia. The tickets are available for all the flights that are to be operated throughout the entire summer season, which means the company’s customers can book the tickets several months in advance at current prices and thus avoid the high-season 25% to 35% price increase. ‘We are trying to steer clear of special offers that promise extremely low prices, since there have been plenty of other airlines that have announced very low-price sales and then fell through in the coming

SKB-Bank’s private individuals’ deposit volume exceeded 11.78 billion RUR on December 31, 2008. The bank reports this figure is even greater than what the company had been planning for the year 2008. ‘Patriot is definitely the most popular deposit type by now, as 2.11 billion RUR have already been invested via this deposit in just three weeks (the deposit offer was launched on December 8, 2008),’ SKB-Bank reports.

763 companies from ten Russian regions opened a deposit at the Ural Bank for Reconstruction and Development. The bank’s press officer reports the number of deposits opened by legal entities and sole traders was a record-setting figure throughout the bank’s entire eighteen-year-long history. ‘The number of deposits opened in December was greater than our most optimistic analysts could imagine. We hope we manage to retain this achievement this year as well, and we are glad that such advantages of using our bank as free e-banking installation, online payments, and united cash services system

‘Our bank’s offices are operating in a brand new format now. They used to be classic and conservative and now they are becoming innovational and open. Our experts are thinking over the idea of automated self-service through electronic cash registers, improved ATM systems, and specially trained staff,’ says Bank Monetniy Dom’s Deputy Chair of the Board Oleg Antonov. Bank Monetniy Dom’s new office opened at 37 Vosmoye Marta St. in Yekaterinburg on December 26, 2008. The ceremony was attended by the bank’s BOD Member and President of Ural Financial Holding Vladimir Shulgin, Chair of the

The Ural Bank for Reconstruction and Development raised the interest rates on deposits that have to be opened and topped up through the bank’s ATMs on December 25, 2008. The increase involved the entire range of these deposit types and came to 2% for ruble deposits and to 1% for foreign currency ones. The bank introduced these ATM-linked deposit schemes over a year ago. ‘Our ATMs operate in a very convenient mode, most of the time they are actually available 24/7. The bank’s ATM network comprises more than 270 machines throughout the country and keeps on expanding. This means a customer who

The state authorities report people have stopped taking their savings out of the banks. What is more, they have actually been depositing more money with the banks since the beginning of winter. First Deputy Head of Government Igor Shuvalov announced last week that the Russian banks’ total deposit volume had gone up over December 1-15, 2008. He said the banking system could already boast a certain surplus, with the banks getting more money than giving any out. At the same time, the Central Bank of Russia was reported to announce that most banks had a zero-sum balance sheet as recently as