Sverdlovsk Gubernskiy Bank keeps charging the customers who want to cash their deposits before the end of the deposit period a 20% commission. This is charged in case a customer takes out more than 50,000 RUR, and the fee comes to 20% of the remainder of the sum exceeding this 50,000-ruble limit. The spokesperson for the bank claims the main idea behind this measure is to prevent the people from taking their money back ahead of time en masse. The limitations were imposed on October 14, 2008. The bank’s customers (including those who had placed their applications for money withdrawal

Ural Airlines will once again start operating flights to Paris on December 27, 2008. The company’s first France-bound flight will be a chartered one, but as soon as January 20, 2009, scheduled flights will be operated every Tuesday. The flight will be operated on a modern A 320 plane. These aircraft are quite fuel-efficient, which means the prices are going to be very reasonable, the spokesperson for the airline reports. The tickets for a flight to Paris are already available at the booking offices.

‘We invest the money we get from our customers in various assets, including the stock market’s ones. We always have our assets re-assessed at the end of the year, so it will be clear by then just how much we have been affected by the present crisis. A portion of the investments has been distributed through bank deposits and real estate, so we hope this money will make up for the possible losses on the stock market,’ UMMC Perspektiva Nongovernmental Retirement Fund’s Deputy CEO Sergey Khalatov said to an UrBC reporter. Russian nongovernmental retirement funds actually tend to see securities as

Profit, a company that provides Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) with scrap metal, is about to increase its supply to the enterprise. MMK needs a lot more metal stuffs after switching from the open-hearth process to the electric-furnace steelmaking, so Profit employed a new technological cycle to meet this demand. The project was started in 2004-2005, followed by the launch of a new production facility in 2007 and the introduction of more scrap metal-collecting units in the Russian regions. MMK’s PR Department reports the enterprise was successfully certified for compliance with the

On October 17, 2008, Bank24.ru came up with a new policy on cashing the customers’ deposits in before the end of the deposit period. According to the bank’s call center, in case a customer wants to take out the money before the end of the deposit term, he or she must place an application beforehand and is allowed to withdraw no more than 100,000 RUR. The bank used to charge its customers a commission in case they wanted to take out more than 50,000 RUR. The commission came to 10% of the remainder of the sum exceeding this 50,000-ruble limit. At the same time, one now has to wait longer to get

Sverdlovsk Gubernskiy Bank keeps charging the customers who want to cash their deposits before the end of the deposit period a 20% commission. This is charged in case a customer takes out more than 50,000 RUR and comes to 20% of the remainder of the sum exceeding this 50,000-ruble limit. The spokesperson for the bank claims the main idea behind this measure is to prevent the people from taking their money back ahead of time en masse. In fact, a lot of the bank’s customers really did start demanding a cashing of their deposits due to the recent panic that infected the local people for no

Bank Severnaya Kazna keeps imposing limitations on the amount of money a customer can withdraw from one’s deposit before the end of the deposit period. The bank’s press officer reports they still only allow a customer to take out the maximum of 50,000 RUR from one deposit a week. What is more, the application for withdrawing any sum exceeding 10,000 RUR has to be made well in advance. On October 17, 2008, for instance, the appointments were only made for October 21, 2008. Besides, some limitations have also been set on the amount of money one can take off one’s deposit through an ATM; the

‘The drop in the number of investors or the amount of investments in the project on the industrial development of the northern parts of the Urals (known as The Industrial Urals-The Polar Urals) is quite possible,’ says Finam Management’s leading expert Dmitriy Baranov. ‘The regional budget’s subsidies might go down, but this project is important for Ural Federal District, so the member regions might ask the federal authorities to allocate more money for its implementation in exchange for a share in the future profit,’ he adds.

SKB-Bank’s BOD Chairman Vladimir Pukhov replied to the earlier address of V.N. Frolov, BOD Chairman of Bank Severnaya Kazna. ‘Dear customers and partners: Bank Severnaya Kazna’s official website featured the Chairman’s address to the customers on October 14, 2008. His message was that the provincial banks had some clear and fair ways of settling money matters with its customers and therefore imposed certain limits on deposits that people want to close before the end of the deposit period. I, on my part, can say that SKB-Bank keeps working as usual and no emergency measures or limits have been

The Ural Bank for Reconstruction and Development has increased the number of bank cards it issues by 29% since the beginning of the year, so this now came to 518,466,000. ‘This quick increase in the number of bank cards can be explained by our having a broad subsidiary network and plenty of ATMs in many Russian regions as well as a balanced promotion policy. The bank keeps on introducing additional bank card options and launches new products and services. In addition, we are trying to be in the wake of global trends and so are starting to switch to chip-based MasterCard items with a new

‘Even though Russia’s financial system is struggling with the liquidity crisis, the Ural Bank for Reconstruction and Development carries out all the payment transactions for its business customers speedily and smoothly and in compliance with the existing bank-customer agreements. The scale of our business is in itself a guarantee of reliable and stable operation. Just like before, the standard settlement and cash service agreement provides for commission-free transfer of money into a customer’s account within fifteen minutes of the sum getting in the bank’s correspondent account. The

Ural Airlines reduced the fuel fees for chartered flights the carrier operates to Hurghada and Sharm El Sheikh due to the jet fuel getting cheaper. As far as Yekaterinburg-Hurghada and Yekaterinburg-Sharm El Sheikh flights are concerned, the fuel fee will drop by 24% and will reach $19.5 per passenger ($29 for A320 and Tu154 M airplanes, $10 for IL 86 aircraft) instead of the former $25.5. In terms of flights that take off in Perm, the fuel fee has gone down by 12.5% and now comes to $28, the airline’s press officer reports. In addition, the company reduced the fees for Yekaterinburg-Antalya

Moscow, 16 October 2008 – UC RUSAL, the world’s largest aluminium and alumina producer, is pleased to announce the 2008 year results of the Global Technology and Innovation Research Project, a long-term programme designed to involve leading universities and research centres in the identification of innovative and sustainable applications for aluminium products.љ A joint committee comprising of UC RUSAL, the International Aluminium Institute (IAI) and Professor Thomas Graedel from the Yale University, as the independent expert, has selected three of the most promising research projects to

Moscow, 16 October 2008 – UC RUSAL, the world’s largest aluminium and alumina producer, is pleased to announce its production and summary financial results for the first nine months of 2008. Highlights Bauxite output rose 3.4% to 13.5 mln tonnesљ compared to the same period last year Alumina output grew 2% to reach 8.4 mln tonnes Primary aluminium production increased 6.5% to 3.3 mln tonnes Output of value-added casthouse products increased 10.8% to constitute 51% of the company’s total aluminium output Foil production rose 5.7% Total revenues for the first nine months of 2008 increased 14%

‘The honesty of Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) will surely be appreciated by the company’s shareholders and investors,’ Finam Management’s leading expert Dmitriy Baranov said to an UrBC reporter. MMK was one of the country’s first metallurgical enterprises to announce a production downfall and certain redundancies brought about by the global financial crisis. ‘In the long run, everything will depend on the state of events at each particular metallurgical enterprise. What MMK is doing now is one of the most logical and speediest ways to react to a crisis,’ he explained.

‘Once the financial crisis broke out, the number of customers who used to shop at Corteo Fashion Mall has gone down dramatically. The sales have naturally dropped quite a bit as well. Those who could afford to buy some really expensive things before are having a hard time now,’ the mall’s Armani section VIP Manager Nina Borodulina said to an UrBC reporter. ‘It’s a bit difficult at the moment to say how much damage has been done to the deluxe clothes retailers. We haven’t got any reliable data yet, though it really is true that the sales have decreased a lot,’ she added.

Sverdlovsk Gubernskiy Bank might soon appear in a whole series of scandalous court trials: the bank will probably be sued by its own customers. On October 14, 2008, the bank imposed a 20% fee on private customers who want to cash their deposits in before the end of the deposit period. The fee is imposed on private individuals who want to withdraw more than 50,000 RUR. The bank claims this has been done in order to avoid the panic that started to spread among the customers. As a result, all the depositors who wanted to get their money back before the end of the deposit period had to either

‘The ongoing financial crisis might actually affect our industrial enterprises. Pnevmostroymachina is the least likely to be damaged, since 30% of this enterprise’s output is export-oriented; besides, this company is involved in a key industry, namely, road construction. As long as the authorities provide the money for roads, this company will keep on working,’ says FINPROMCO’s Vice President Ildar Gubaev. ‘As far as all the other enterprises of the union are concerned, they can get seriously hurt. They might have to switch to a four-day working week, cut back on the social benefit programs,

Central Bank of Russia reports volume of loans given by UralFinPromBan to sole traders for 91 to 180 days went down by 50.90% (from 27.5 million RUR to 13.5 million RUR) in January-September 2008.

Chelyabinsk Tube Rolling Plant and Pervouralsk New Pipe Plant (ChTPZ Group’s largest tube and pipe manufacturers) supplied their consumers with 1.27 million tons of tubular goods in January-September 2008, which falls short of the figures for a year earlier by 13%. ChTPZ sold 675,800 tons of tubes and pipes in the nine months of the year, which falls short of the figures for a year earlier (that is, 803,800 tons) by 16%. These figures include a 28% drop in the amount of large-diameter pipes: this came to 319,800 tons compared with 444,000 tons of LDPs in January-September 2007. Chelyabinsk