URSA Bank’s Yekaterinburg subsidiary won the first prize in the Best Personal Savings Program category at the Lending and Investment Quality Festival in Yekaterinburg on March 26-28, 2008. The event was coordinated by Quality Guarantee, the innovational technologies center, with some support from Yekaterinburg Consumer Rights Committee. There were twelve all-Russian, regional, and local banks with offices in Yekaterinburg that attended the festival altogether. Apart from the first prize, a number of URSA Bank’s products received some honorary diplomas: the bank’s Holiday deposit got a diploma

Sverdlovsk Region’s Government thanked SKB-Bank’s management for the company’s great contribution to organization and coordination of Russian Expo Arms-2007, the International Exposition of Armament, Defense Technologies and Ammunition, the bank’s press officer reports. First Deputy Head of Sverdlovsk Region Government for Economic Policies and Prospective Development and the region’s Minister for Economics and Labor Mikhail Maximov expressed his genuine gratitude to the bank for the company’s willingness to cooperate, which adds to the country’s defense capabilities as well as to the Urals’

‘We got about 8,000 complaints from the city’s dwellers last year, and some 200 complains came from travelers; however, we only handled the cases which could not be settled out of court,’ Chairman of Yekaterinburg Consumer Rights Committee Andrei Artemiev said to UrBC. Mr. Artemiev says he wouldn’t be able to single out one travel agent that did a particularly bad job: rather, the number of claims was directly proportional to the number of an agent’s customers. ‘On the legal side of the issue, travelers have to beware of the so-called time-sharing terms, when a customer’s tour only covers

Central Bank of Russia reports volume of for-profit self-regulatory organizations’ deposits in Universal Bank valid for 1 to 3 years went down by 94.36% (from 9.75 million RUR to 550,000 RUR) in January 2008.

Yekaterinburg’s Central Department of Rospotrebnadzor (the state consumer rights watchdog) published the results of inspecting the city’s travel agents. After the Russian tourism legislation was modified in 2007, Rospotrebnadzor had to inspect a number of companies (including Palma Tours, SverdlovskKurort, Zheltyi Chemodan, and Time Travel) after complaints had been filed by some of their customers. The inspections revealed that these travel agents violated the existing sanitary regulations as well as some of consumers’ rights: 1. The companies failed to fully inform the customers about the

According to the National Managers’ League’s profitability ranking of unit investment trusts as of March 27, 2008, the share price of Troika Dialog Federalniy (Troika Dialog Management Company) has gone down by 23.17% since the beginning of the year.

Ukraine’s Supreme Rada approved of a bill that limits the advertising of strong drinks and tobacco products. These limits are much stricter than those imposed by the Russian government, but they are to be introduced gradually between January 1, 2009 and January 1, 2010. First, no alcohol or tobacco products will be advertised through billboards or any other type of outdoor ads, and one year later, no such ads will appear in any kind of mass media, excluding specialized magazines. Nevertheless, these upcoming changes do not alarm the Ukrainian strong drinks producers too much, as they usually

Central Bank of Russia reports volume of non-profit NGOs’ deposits in Bank URALSIB valid for up to 30 days dropped by 99.33% (from 39.3 million RUR to 262,000 RUR) in January 2008.

According to the Central Bank of Russia, volume of call loans given by VUZ Bank to private individuals went down by 6.69% (from 8.72 million RUR to 8.136 million RUR) in January 2008.

Central Bank of Russia reports volume of natural persons’ deposits and other investments in TagilBank valid for 31 to 90 days went down by 20% (from 36.908 million RUR to 29.516 million RUR) in January 2008.

‘Foreign heavy engineering companies control 70% of the market at the moment; Russian companies fall behind because of a long history of being underfinanced, experiencing quality problems and difficulties meeting the deadlines brought about by faulty business structures. Now, we have the means to improve the situation,’ Uralmashzavod’s Marketing and Strategic Director Alexei Slavitch said at a press conference on March 28, 2008. ‘So far, Uralmash Machine-Building Corporation has done a lot to find its way out of a crisis. The company’s main achievement is that we now have a clear divisional

The 500-megawatt power generating unit 10 was re-launched at Reftinskaya power station (part of OGK-5), having been fully restored after the breakdown, the spokesperson for OGK-5 reports. Yet it took the company nearly eighteen months to have the unit fixed. The breakdown occurred on December 20, 2006 when the power station caught fire, destroying the roof of the main building and ruining the power unit completely. The power station’s second 2,000-megawatt section had to be shut down, which infringed on the system’s reliability and did the company over 237 million RUR worth of damage. Later

According to the Central Bank of Russia, volume of loans given by Pervouralsk Joint Stock Commercial Bank to private individuals for 181 days to 1 year went down by 4.02% (from 30.327 million RUR to 29.107 million RUR) in January 2008.

‘A lot of Chelyabinsk dwellers are suffering from alcoholism, and some special attention needs to be paid to the so-called beer alcoholism,’ Vladimir Bogomolov, the director of Wings, an autonomous non-profit organization, said to UrBC. He reported beer alcoholism was widely spread among teenagers. ‘Beer makers target their ads at the younger generation, and some retail outlets (whose licenses must no doubt be annulled) sell beer to minors. Beer is just too easily available these days; the kind made by Baltika (the main beer supplier in the Southern Urals) falls right into the price segment

The Ural Bank for Reconstruction and Development came up with a new deposit offer for businesses; the new scheme provides for either a monthly payment of interest or the payment of interest at the end of the deposit period (this comes to thirteen months, or 397 days). The interest rate is determined at 13% a year; there is no early termination option.

Bentley is planning to set up a show room in Yekaterinburg at the end of 2008 or the beginning of 2009, Deputy Mayor Viktor Konteev said to UrBC. ‘These luxury cars will probably enjoy good enough demand in Yekaterinburg. When Porsche introduced its outlet here, for example, the owners were planning to sell about a dozen cars a year, whereas the sales come to up to six automobiles a month at the moment,’ he added.

Ural Airlines is to switch to its summer timetable on March 30, 2008 and use it through October 31, 2008. Experts from the airline’s Scheduling Department tried to provide plenty of flights to the most popular destinations, especially popular family holiday resorts. In addition, they did their best to make the time of departure for flights bound for the southern resorts as convenient as possible. In terms of flights frequency, three flights a week will be operated to Mineralniye Vody now compared with only one flight a week in the winter time; flights to Krasnodar and Sochi will be offered

Russian Trading System is planning to send a written request on the possibility of withdrawing RichBrokerService’s shares from circulation to Saint Petersburg Stock Exchange, Vedomosti reports. The company’s shares were admitted to RTS on March 17, 2008, but as soon as March 20, 2008 all the trading operations were stopped due to ‘the threat of circumstances that could infringe on the shareholders’ rights’. Vedomosti quoted Saint Petersburg Stock Exchange CEO Alexei Sergeev, who said the exchange would probably agree to withdrawing, even though the final decision had not been made yet.

First Deputy Head of Sverdlovsk Region Government and Minister for Economics and Labor Mikhail Maximov chaired this year’s first meeting on environment and nature management; one of the main points on the agenda was related to the maximum permissible discharge limits (introduced by the government on March 18, 2005) the regional enterprises were supposed to reach. Sverdlovsk Region’s First Deputy Minister for Natural Resources Galina Pakhalchuk said the deadlines (ranging from 2005 to 2011) were set for sixteen enterprises located in environmentally impaired cities; this included seven

Sverdlovsk Region Court of Arbitration is to consider two complaints (А60-3012/08 and А60-3039/08) filed by UralTransBank against ROSNO on March 28, 2008. Both cases are related to insurance payments. ‘As for the first suit (А60-3012/08), UralTransBank demands for 68,235.54 RUR in compensation, as for the second one (А60-3039/08), the bank wants to get 142,000 RUR. Even though the sums are not overwhelming, the thing is, the bank has already laid more than 200 claims against the insurer, so the total sum comes to a very tidy bit. I believe these two cases will be the main points on today’s