Central Bank of Russia reports volume of loans given by Tagilbank to natural persons for 1 to 3 years went down by 5.97% (from 196.167 million RUR to 184.449 million RUR) in December 2007-January 2008.

'The scheme that gives a member of a cooperative a chance to buy an apartment for 50% of the price does not seem to be very transparent or clear. The cooperative must explain where they will get the other half that will later be paid to the bank through a mortgage loan,’ Director of Yarmarka real estate agency Dmitriy Gusev said to UrBC. In the meantime, Yekaterinburg is full of ads that offer buying a place through cooperatives. The cooperatives claim you only have to pay 50% of the apartment’s full cost, with the other half to be paid by RusFinance. Then the cooperative will allegedly

URSA Bank completed two trade financing transactions worth $4.4m in February 2008. Firstly, the bank received $1.4m for a term of one year from Bank of Montreal (BMO Group, Canada) in order to finance the import contracts of a Tomsk-based trading firm. Secondly, URSA Bank got $3m for eighteen months from the Japanese Sumitomo Mitsui Corporation in order to finance the purchase of machinery for a Yekaterinburg-based medical equipment producer. Trade financing is quite popular on the banking services market nowadays, as Russian companies need to buy some modern equipment abroad as well as

Sberbank’s Ural branch’s consumer loan portfolio exceeded 83.3 billion RUR at the beginning of 2008, which is 29.3 billion RUR better than a year earlier. So far, the bank has provided its customers with 341,000 loans. 'This impressive loan portfolio growth results from the ongoing improvements our crediting schemes are given, and the emergence of more subsidiaries. Most of the loans we offered our customers were no-purpose consumer loans, automobile loans, and mortgages. We gave thousands of people an opportunity to move into a better home, buy a car, go on holiday or get some new

'We happen to be Societe Generale’s daughter enterprise, and yet we are quite independent from its financial successes or failures. Despite the current problems, Societe Generale will probably provide us with the resources it was expecting to allot. I personally don’t feel the crisis has affected our company in any way, and we haven’t had to cut down on our development program yet. However, the things that happened were not particularly good ones because they mean we’ll still have to work as hard as at the very beginning,’ BSGV-Yekaterinburg’s GD Andrei Pavin announced at the press

Central Bank of Russia reports volume of loans given by Pervouralsk Joint Stock Commercial Bank to sole traders for 181 days to 1 year went down by 17.08% (from 17.308 million RUR to 14.352 million RUR) in December 2007-January 2008.

According to the Central Bank of Russia, volume of loans given by Uralfinance Commercial Bank to for-profit self-regulatory organizations for 91 to 180 days went down by 5.52% (from 22.009 million RUR to 20.795 million RUR) in December 2007-January 2008.

The regional authorities might ban the construction of an apartment block at 57 Radischev St. (Yekaterinburg) currently supervised by Aston Building Company. According to Rossiyskaya Gazeta, Sverdlovsk Region’s division of the state board of experts looked into the project and was planning to turn it down on February 20, 2008, since the experts found a number of problems in this project. In the meantime, the local council is not allowed to let any builder start working unless the experts approve of their project. The building, however, is half-finished already, even though the people from the

The value of net assets of Energy - Mixed Investments (the unit investment trust) managed by Eurogreen Management Company Ltd. went down by 1.64% between February 19, 2008 and February 20, 2008. According to Eurogreen’s website, the company’s net assets decreased from 3,090,443.18 RUR on February 19, 2008 to 3,040,669.25 RUR on February 20, 2008.

Central Bank of Russia reports volume of loans given by Perviy Respublikanskiy Bank to for-profit self-regulatory organizations for up to 30 days went down by 78.69% (from 33.093 million RUR to 7.05million RUR) in December 2007-January 2008.

According to the National Managers’ League’s profitability ranking of unit investment trusts, the share price of CIT Fortis Russian Oil (CIT Fortis Investment Management Company) has gone down by 12.38% since the beginning of the year.

Central Bank of Russia reports volume of loans given by UralTransBank to for-profit self-regulatory organizations despite overdraft went down by 35.45% (from 100.165 million RUR to 64.653 million RUR) in December 2007-January 2008.

'People tended to open more ruble deposits rather than the foreign currency ones in the last quarter of the year, so the volume of ruble deposits in banks located in Ural Federal District rose by 10.2% compared to an 8.3% increase in the volume of foreign currency deposits in October-December 2007,’ the Deposit Insurance Agency’s report says. Kurgan Region had the smallest share of foreign currency deposits in its banks (it only came to 1% of the total deposit volume on January 1, 2008), while Tyumen Region had the greatest share which amounted to 10.4% of the total deposit volume.

Koltsovo airport of Yekaterinburg resumed working after its runway and parking areas had been properly cleaned. ‘It took fourteen vehicles and a team of workers to remove all the snow that was there,’ the airport’s PR expert Olga Ladeischikova said to UrBC. The airport remained closed for the whole morning of February 21, 2008 due to a continuous heavy snowfall.

Central Bank of Russia reports volume of loans given by SberInvestBank to sole traders for 1 to 3 years went down by 22.22% (from 1.8 million RUR to 1.4 million RUR) in December 2007-January 2008.

Central Bank of Russia reports volume of loans given by VUZ Bank to sole traders despite overdraft dropped by 100% (from 1.397 million RUR to zero) in December 2007-January 2008.

The share price of Alemar Index MICEX (the open unit investment trust run by Alemar Management Company) went down by 10.43% between January 1, 2008 and February 15, 2008. These data are available from Alemar Management Company’s official website.

Settlement services and cash transactions are the most popular baking service with the Russian businesses at the moment, a recent marketing research on the banking and insurance services to businesses shows. Loans were the second most popular service, as over 45% of respondents admitted they borrowed money from banks at some point or other. Bank cards and salary accounts were rated as the third most popular service, with 43% of those surveyed using it, followed by international payments (used by 21.2% of respondents) and bank deposits (used by 19.5% of the surveyed companies’ top managers).

Ural Treasures Bank is now offering its customers a new service known as Internet Bank. The service is available for both businesses and private individuals, who can now enjoy a full range of banking services and easy account management opportunities online without even setting foot inside the bank office. To use the service, any modern computer with an Internet connection supporting Microsoft Internet Explorer, Netscape Navigator, Mozilla, or FireFox will do. E-banking is compatible with Windows, Linux, and other operating systems and ensures a guaranteed safety level through Crypto C system

According to the National Managers’ League’s profitability ranking of unit investment trusts as of February 18, 2008, Birzhevaya Ploschad - Index MICEX (the Bank of Moscow Management Company) has gone down by 11.57% since the beginning of the year.