Ural Treasures Bank reports the company’s new name is Rus-Bank-Ural from now on. The announcement to this extent was made via the Bank of Russia’s official website under the rubric called Information on Crediting Organizations on August 5, 2008. Rus-Bank acquired 98.42% of Ural Treasures Bank’s shares at the end of 2007, thus making the latter a part of a large banking group. On May 19, 2008, Ural Treasures Bank’s EGM resulted in the decision to change the company’s name to Rus-Bank-Ural, whereupon the preparation for a re-branding campaign began. The bank started to gradually introduce

According to the Central Bank of Russia, volume of for-profit self-regulatory organizations’ deposits in SberInvestBank valid for up to 30 days plummeted by 100% (from 200 million RUR to zero) in January-July 2008.

Central Bank of Russia reports volume of private individuals’ deposits in Ural Innovational Commercial Bank valid for 91 to 180 days went down by 23.18% (from 112.466 million RUR to 86.396 million RUR) in January-July 2008.

On August 7, 2008, the 9th Court of Appeal supported the decision taken by Moscow Court of Arbitration, thus ruling in favor of the Federal Antimonopoly Service’s claim related to one unsuitable advertisement where Technosila trademark was featured, the spokesperson for the Service reports. The advertisement in question was designed for Spektr and exposed a number of goods offered at certain prices, while the off-screen announcer kept commenting on some ‘fools’ who’d bought the goods at a less advantageous price; the comment was accompanied by a number of men’s names: ‘Alex is a fool! He’s

Moscow, 12 August 2008. UC RUSAL, as a shareholder of Norilsk Nickel, is seriously concerned with the environmental situation relating to production activities at Norilsk Nickel’s facilities in Russia.љ According to the state environmental monitoring service and international public organisations, the environmental situation at Norilsk is on the brink of catastrophe. The following are just some of the alarming observations: For approximately 350 days-a-year the level of hazardous substances, recorded in the atmosphere surrounding Norilsk Nickel facilities exceeds the Maximum Permissible

TUV NORD CERT, a certificating authority, declared that the produce of Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) met all the necessary quality requirements. The audit procedure was carried out in compliance with the AD 2000-W0 technical standards (developed for checking if a product meets the 97/23/ЕС directive for high-pressure vessels) and EN 10025-1:2004 standards (Appendix ZA, developed for checking if a product meets the 97/23/ЕС directive for building materials). The auditor looked into the enterprise’s normative documents, engineering specification, and design documentation, as well as

According to the Central Bank of Russia, volume of loans given by VUZ Bank to for-profit self-regulatory organizations for 181 days to 1 year dropped by 46.19% (from 210.978 million RUR to 113.517 million RUR) in January-July 2008.

‘We’ve got a relatively limited assortment of beer in our restaurant, and Baltika beer is missing from our menu because it is not popular with our customers,’ Ocean restaurant’s administrator Marina Kumaneva said to UrBC. As a matter of fact, Baltika’s produce isn’t offered at quite a few of Yekaterinburg’s cafes and bars, most of which explain this beer does not enjoy good demand.

Central Bank of Russia reports volume of loans given by Perviy Respublikanskiy Bank to for-profit self-regulatory organizations for 1 to 3 years went down by 16.59% (from 1,251,433,000 RUR to 1,043,752,000 RUR) in January-July 2008.

The net profit of Uralsvyazinform, the telecommunications and Internet provider, went down by 27.5% in the first half of 2008 compared to a year earlier. The company’s operating profit decreased by 17.2%. Apart from that, the provider’s revenue resulting from the local telephone connection services dropped by 2.2% due to a new distribution of tariff schemes among their subscribers: more customers chose to pay for the minutes they actually spend talking on the phone rather than to pay a fixed monthly fee that does not depend on the amount of time one spends talking. Besides, some of the

Bank24.ru announced at the beginning of August 2008 that they had set up a corporate blog in addition to the bank’s official website. The blog itself had a reference to JetStyle as the product’s developer; however, it was actually operating on the basis of a free Wordpress platform, while the picture gallery was also working with the help of the free Nextgen gallery software. ‘We’ve got our own platform where we can create blogs for our customers, but Wordpress is more convenient and easier to use,’ JetStyle’s director Alexei Kulakov said to UrBC. ‘As for the cost of developing the blog, it

Norilsk Nickel’s Board of Directors accepted Sergey Batekhin’s resignation and elected Vladimir Strzhalkovskiy the company’s General Director on August 9, 2008. In addition, the number of the Supervisory Board members was agreed at eight. Apart from that, the company’s BOD considered taking part in a tender related to the development of Udokanskoye copper deposit. Having looked into the economic estimates available, the BOD decided their independent development of this deposit would be inexpedient.

VSMPO-AVISMA Corporation’s Board of Directors considered a number of their corporate management’s further development strategies, since the highly competitive titanium market makes it essential for the company to keep introducing the most advanced business approaches in management. The corporation’s BOD decided to modify their management structure by introducing the position of the company’s President, who will report directly to the Board of Directors. The BOD’s next meeting at the end of August 2008 will be devoted to going over all the documents that regulate the relations between the

Central Bank of Russia reports volume of loans given by UralTransBank to state-run for-profit organizations for 181 days to 1 year dropped by 92.01% (from 1.466 million RUR to 117,000 RUR) in January-July 2008.

Central Bank of Russia reports volume of loans given by Bank24.ru to sole traders for up to 30 days plummeted by 100% (from 50 million RUR to zero) in January-July 2008.

‘Three more shopping malls and 118,400 square meters of storehouses are to be put up in Yekaterinburg in the second half of 2008. In addition, ten business centers and seven hotels should be introduced. This is a lot more construction to do in comparison with the first six months of the year,’ says Deputy Mayor of Yekaterinburg Viktor Konteev. ‘I don’t think all the projects will be ready by the end of 2009, that is, in time for the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit. Some of them are already missing their deadlines, and if the developers don’t manage to catch up, the construction will

Governor of Chelyabinsk Region Petr Sumin placed the budget merit for 2009-2011 to the region’s Legislative Assembly. The document covers the region’s basic taxation and budgetary policy directions and provides a preliminary three-year spending plan, the spokesperson for the Governor reports. The region’s budgetary policy is largely targeted at improving the people’s living standards. This is why the financial system is expected to keep the regional budget’s balance and facilitate the achievement of municipal budgets’ balances as well as to promote economic growth, enhance the population’s

Moscow, 11 August 2008 – UC RUSAL, the world’s largest aluminium and alumina producer, and RusHydro, the largest Russian renewable energy generating company, have announced the two-year results of their joint BEMO project, which includes the completion of the Boguchansky hydropower plant and the construction of a greenfield aluminium smelter in the Krasnoyarsk region. Since the beginning of the project, both companies have already invested over USD 1.8 billion, while it is expected to bring the total amount of expenditures by the end of 2008 to USD 2.6 bln. 65% of the investments were

Sverdlovsk Region’s division of Rosprirodnadzor (the state environmental watchdog) carried out a number of scheduled and unscheduled inspections of local companies and detected a number of water code violations, the spokesperson for Rosprirodnadzor reports. One case involves VSMPO-AVISMA Corporation based in Nizhnyaya Salda. Sverdlovsk Region’s division of Rosprirodnadzor ordered the company to eliminate the violation; besides, the enterprise will have to face administrative responsibility.

URSA Bank’s IT system was declared the fourth best among Russia’s major banks in 2007 in CNews Analytics’ annual rating. The rating of the country’s thirty largest banks’ IT systems was compiled by a number of banking experts, integrators, and vendors on the basis of more than fifteen criteria, including functionality, dependability, and scalability of systems responsible for automation of retail customer service, lending business, plastic card processing, and management reporting as well as for protection of information. ‘URSA Bank made a number of efforts aimed at improving its IT