URSA Bank is now among Russia’s fifty banks that are allowed to provide a banker’s guarantee to those willing to get a loan from the Bank of Russia. The full list became available via the Central Bank of Russia’s website on September 19, 2007. The Bank of Russia’s provisions provide for a chance to apply for a loan that would be covered by the Bank given that some commercial bank offers a banker’s guarantee for this. The Bank only accepts guarantees from banks whose credit rating comes to at least B+ (according to Standard & Poor’s or Fitch Ratings) or at least B1 (according to Moody’s).

This year, Governor of Chelyabinsk Region Petr Sumin has so far allotted 120 million RUR to buy homes for the region’s orphans. The spokesperson for the Governor reports there are currently over 16,000 orphans and children without any parental custody in the region. The existing law states that municipalities must make sure such a child gets to keep his or her home upon being sent to an orphanage; if a child does not have a home, he or she must be put on the special waiting list that has names of more than 5,600 children on it at the moment. Most of these children live in orphanages, with

The spokesperson for Evraz Group reports the company has recently completed the independent technical audit procedures in its Urals-based ore mining enterprises. The audits of Vanadium Ore Mining and Processing Enterprise and of Vysokogorskiy Ore Mining and Processing Enterprise were carried out by the UK-based SPK Consulting Ltd’s international consultants. This was the first time Evraz’ Ural companies underwent such an all-rounded examination. The auditors visited the grinding and processing shops, the railway management departments, the blasting shops, and all the mines. They evaluated the

According to the Central Bank of Russia, volume of for-profit self-regulatory organizations’ deposits in Sverdlovsk Gubernskiy Bank valid for 181 days to 1 year went down by 52.25% (from 79.093 million RUR to 37.767 million RUR) in January-August 2007.

‘We’ve stopped placing orders for Nemiroff strong drinks, since our customers no longer buy them. We are not planning on resuming our purchases any time soon,’ Albina’s goods manager Nadezhda Pavlova says. ‘Our store can boast a fairly wide range of strong drinks supplied by both Russian and foreign producers, including some Ukraine-based ones. I believe most of them can compete with TM Nemiroff in terms of quality,’ she notes.

‘Uralvneshtorgbank (as it then was) had a reputation for its trade financing offers; now that it has merged with SibAcademBank, the bank’s trade financing potential has increased dramatically under the new brand,’ Vice President of URSA Bank’s Ural branch Vadim Manin says. ‘Given that URSA Bank is on Russia’s Top 20 largest banks list in terms of net assets, a lot of foreign companies and banks we’ve been doing business with are eager to offer us even more favorable financing terms,’ Mr. Manin notes. ‘Trade financing is an ever-developing product at the moment, so the list of our customers is

Chelyabinsk Tube Rolling Plant and Pervouralsk New Pipe Plant (ChTPZ Group’s largest tube and pipe manufacturers) supplied their consumers with 1,309,000 tons of tubular goods in the eight months of 2007, which is 18% better than in January-August 2006 when the figure only came to 1,111,000 tons. ChTPZ Group sold 717,500 tons of tubes and pipes in the eight months of the year, which exceeds the figures for a year earlier (that is, 611,900 tons) by 17%. These figures include a 26% increase in the amount of large-diameter pipes: it came to 401,300 tons compared with only 317,300 tons of LDPs in

According to the Central Bank of Russia, volume of for-profit self-regulatory organizations’ deposits in Yekaterinburg Municipal Bank valid for 1 to 3 years went down by 59.41% (from 31.78 million RUR to 12.9 million RUR) in January-August 2007.

Central Bank of Russia reports volume of for-profit self-regulatory organizations’ deposits in Pervouralsk Joint Stock Commercial Bank valid for 1 to 3 years went down by 89.13% (from 92 million RUR to 10 million RUR) in January-August 2007.

Stock market experts believe a recent drop in the dollar rate is not likely to affect either the Russian citizens’ well being or the Russian banks’ performance. ‘Even though the U.S. dollar rate went down from 25.4 RUR to 25.18 RUR per dollar within a week, we don’t believe people will start frantically get rid of their dollars,’ SKB-Bank’s Dealing Director Anton Khavin says. ‘The dollar rate started decreasing as early as the beginning of summer when it went past the psychologically significant point of a digit changing 25 RUR per U.S. dollar, and this trend just keeps developing. It looks

Central Bank of Russia reports volume of overdraft loans given by UralTransBank to for-profit self-regulatory organizations went down by 13.15% (from 88.306 million RUR to 76.694 million RUR) in January-August 2007.

‘We need to adopt some special environmental protection policy,’ Governor of Chelyabinsk Region Petr Sumin announced at the regional government’s meeting. ‘Quite a few companies are now starting to pay more attention to conservational issues, yet what we need is not only some improvements in the management system, but also stricter surveillance measures as well as making sure the environmental offenses that still occur sometimes are invariably prosecuted, and that there is always some appropriate redress. One vital issue is handling the region’s disposal sites and consumer waste. Keeping an

Central Bank of Russia reports volume of loans given by AGROPROMBANK Credit to for-profit self-regulatory organizations for 1 to 3 years went down by 21.89% (from 1,949,182,000 RUR to 1,522,531,000 RUR) in January-August 2007.

According to the Central Bank of Russia, volume of loans given by Tagilbank to for-profit self-regulatory organizations for 181 days to 1 year went down by 18.19% (from 59.1 million RUR to 48.352 million RUR) in January-August 2007.

URSA Bank was proclaimed Russia’s Most Caring Bank in the course of the First Russian Bank Festival inspired and coordinated by the Association of Russian Banks and the National Bank Club. The festival took place in Budva, Montenegro. This event was attended by top representatives of the legislature and of the executive branch, executives from the Banking Association for Central and Eastern Europe as well as those from the European Banking Federation, and heads of Russia’s largest banks. The agenda of the festival/forum included a session on the ways of creating a united Pan-European

Central Bank of Russia reports volume of loans given by GRAN Bank to natural persons for 181 days to 1 year went down by 28.48% (from 42.657 million RUR to 30.508 million RUR) in January-August 2007.

The Soviet of the Federation appointed Yuri Osintsev the Soviet’s representative in Sverdlovsk Region Legislative Assembly on September 19, 2007. Mr. Osintsev was elected member of the Soviet on February 24, 2007 (he was the only candidate for the position).

Golden Telecom, an Internet connection provider, decided to become less friendly to its individual subscribers through canceling its policy of giving a subscriber a bonus for topping up one’s account with the help of an ATM. The company sends out letters that state, ‘We thereby inform you that beginning from October 1, 2007, no bonuses will be added to your account when replenishing it through an ATM transaction. We do hope for further cooperation.’ The bonus consisted in Golden Telecom making up for the 2% their subscriber would spend on a bank commission when using an ATM. Even though the

IES Multiutilities reports it had 618.21 million RUR worth of unpaid electricity bills, 422.414 million RUR worth of unpaid heating bills, and 52.683 million RUR worth of unpaid water supply bills on September 1, 2007. Overall, various companies came to owe IES Multiutilities 1,093,306,000 RUR altogether. The company is still using complaints and claim-laying practices as the major tool of debt recovery; in August 2007, 599 cases ended up in the court, with 556 out of 599 claims laid against private individuals. Kamensk Communal Company, with its 75,209,020,000 RUR worth of debts (as of

Central Bank of Russia reports volume of loans given by Plato Bank to natural persons for 1 to 3 years went down by 55.3% (from 2.821 million RUR to 1.261 million RUR) in January-August 2007.