RBC.Rating came up with this year’s list of Russian banks with the most developed subsidiary network. The Ural Bank for Reconstruction and Development was featured on the list as usual. This is in fact Ural Federal District’s largest bank in terms of the number of subsidiaries that was given the 21st position in the national rating. RosBusinessConsulting’s experts report the bank ran 161 outlets (including subsidiaries, additional offices, POS terminals, etc) on July 1, 2008, the spokesperson for the Ural Bank for Reconstruction and Development reports. ‘The bank does better and better every

The construction of Europe Trade and Business Center is no longer as speedy as it once used to be, PRED Group’s General Director Vyacheslav Talashmanov said in the interview he gave to Yekaterinburg magazine. The building is currently being put up right in the heart of Yekaterinburg in Vainer St.-Lenin Ave.-Uritskiy St. and PRED Group is actually the project’s management company. Vyacheslav Talashmanov says the construction process started to drag on because the new concept of the shopping area has been introduced. ‘The decision to change some things about the shopping zone was made in July

Allianz ROSNO Life, the insurance company, has recently set up a network of regional front offices in order to make its regional network’s performance more efficient and to improve on its business processes. The company’s top executives set up the regional offices’ territorial boundaries and appointed their directors. Allianz ROSNO Life’s first Ural Federal District-based office was introduced in Tyumen in 2005. The Ural front office now comprises the company’s Tyumen subsidiary and four agencies in Yekaterinburg, Kurgan, Magnitogorsk, and Chelyabinsk. The office (as well as Tyumen

Bank Severnaya Kazna cashed in 198 million RUR worth of customers’ deposits on October 13, 2008, the bank’s official forum states. This came to about 1% of the total volume of private individuals’ investments in the bank, as the private customers’ deposit volume totaled to 20,641,069,000 RUR on September 1, 2008. Nevertheless, the bank’s employees report the bank keeps up with its business as usual and the withdrawal of nearly 200 million RUR is not a problem.

UralTransBank’s Risk and Liquidity Management Director Elena Kozlovskaya no longer has a share in the company’s authorized capital. Her share used to come to .14%.

Bank24.ru had to impose certain fines for 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 and comes to 10% of the sum that exceeds the 50,000-ruble limit, the bank’s customers told UralBusinessConsulting Agency of Information and Analytics. The bank’s employees explain the main idea behind this commission is to stop the dramatic money outflow. As a matter of fact, the bank has only been cashing its deposits by previous appointment (which has to be made a week in

METCOMBANK offered its customers two new deposit schemes on October 13, 2008. These are METCOM Profitable and METCOM Progressive. The latter provides for the best profit and the lowest risk. You have to deposit at least 10,000 RUR and can always top up your account, the bank’s press officer explains. The interest is capitalized every fifteen days, so every fifteen days this interest is increased and thus rises from 8.5% a year at the beginning to 16% a year at the end of the deposit period. The recommended deposit period comes to 375 days. The former is unique in that the interest rate comes

Sberbank of Russia’s Ural branch has been able to attract more than 149 billion RUR worth of private customers’ investments by now, with 20.3 billion RUR placed with the bank in January-September 2008 alone. The ruble deposits made up the lion’s share of all investments and amounted to 17.3 billion RUR, while the foreign currency deposits only rose by 2.9 billion RUR in nine months of 2009, the bank’s press officer reports. ‘This stable growth in the amount of investments means that people see a bank deposit as one of the most attractive ways of investing money. Buying shares or real estate

Central Bank of Russia reports volume of loans given by Tagilbank to non-state for-profit organizations for 91 to 180 days went down by 85.07% (from 21.44 million RUR to 3.2 million RUR) in January-September 2008.

Moscow, 14 October 2008 — UC RUSAL, which owns a 25% plus two shares stake in Norilsk Nickel, љis issuing this statement to raise its concerns about the announced purchases of a number of assets by љa Norilsk Nickel subsidiary from Vladimir Potanin, the shareholder controlling the company, as well as about financial situation of Norilsk Nickel in general. The decision to purchase the assets worth more than USD 600 mln from the shareholder controlling the company was taken without discussions with other shareholders or Board of Directors. This decision as well as buyback of Norilsk Nickel’s

RBC.Rating included SKB-Bank in the rating of Russia’s Top 50 banks in terms of the number of subsidiaries they run. The agency’s analysts report SKB-Bank ran ninety-one subdivisions as of July 1, 2008 and has more than one hundred offices now. Geographically, these range from Kaliningrad to Khabarovsk and can be found in nine time zones. As a matter of fact, only three Urals-based banks were actually featured in this Top 50 rating.

‘We are now offering fewer Honda cars on credit because the banks are taking longer to process the loan applications and only approve of the most reliable borrowers. All this has to do with the ongoing financial crisis,’ Alexei Tarasov, a salesperson from Yekaterinburg’s Honda dealing center (Saret Auto, managed by Autoland Holding), said to an UrBC reporter. Tarasov explained their only customers whom the crisis hadn’t affected were those who pay in full and at once. ‘Our cash sales have been on the increase over the last few months,’ he noted.

Russian President Dmitriy Medvedev asked Deputy Head of Government Alexander Zhukov to support the implementation of Academic, a major construction project in Yekaterinburg. The President’s address to the Government states that making this project a reality will result in the emergence of a new administrative district in Yekaterinburg that will meet all the modern living and environmental standards. In the meantime, Sverdlovsk Region Government, Yekaterinburg municipal council, and the project’s strategic investor RENOVA-StroyGroup are working on a set of measures that will help provide the

‘We are not making anybody redundant and there are no layoffs,’ the spokesperson for Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) Elena Azovtseva said to an UrBC reporter. ‘It’s true that fewer people are needed when the production output is on the decrease, and a certain number of workers will not be involved in the technological process. But this is only a temporary thing brought about by our personnel optimization policies. We’ve got plenty of multi-skilled employees whose expertise is used for other jobs, like overhauls, for example,’ she explained.

‘We have already increased the prices of some of our buildings by 2%. When our new housing gets commissioned, the price of a square meter will rise by 15% to 30%. Exactly when this can happen will depend on the market situation, but if we don’t go for a price rise, there will simply be no point in starting the construction at all, even though increased prices might naturally lead to deferred demand,’ says LSR-Ural Management Company’s General Director Andrei Bibikov. ‘As far as the housing prices in buildings already under construction are concerned, they haven’t been raised much. The prime

The Ural Bank for Reconstruction and Development offers its customers a new deposit type. The bank’s Convenient deposit provides for a 15% annual interest rate, while the lower money limit for opening a deposit comes to as little as 5,000 RUR. The deposit period comes to 100 days, and you can top up your deposit account any time you like. What is more, you can also withdraw a portion of the money without losing the interest. The interest is actually paid and capitalized on a daily basis. You can use the offer at any of the bank’s offices.

Central Bank of Russia reports volume of loans given by Sverdlovsk Gubernskiy Bank to non-state for-profit organizations for 31 to 90 days went down by 25.94% (from 495.91 million RUR to 367.254 million RUR) in January-September 2008.

The share price of Vympelcom’s ADRs went down by 3.659% and came to $12.9 per ADR at the close of business at New York Stock Exchange on October 7, 2008, Vedomosti reports.

Sberinvestbank will have to pay a 40,000-ruble fine for violating the federal advertising bill, the spokesperson for Sverdlovsk Region’s division of the Federal Antimonopoly Service reports. The Service’s regional division declared on May 21, 2008 that the bank’s car loan ad printed in Telesem newspaper was improper due to missing some essential information on the additional expenses the borrower would have to bear, namely, the expenses resulting from having to insure the automobile that would itself serve as a loan guarantee. On June 4, 2008, the Service filed a lawsuit against the bank,

Sverdlovsk Region Railways were not among the Russian Railways Public Company’s growing branches in January-September 2008, as its passenger turnover volume hadn’t gone up during these months compared with January-September 2007, the spokesperson for Russian Railways Public Company reports. In the meantime, Russian Railways’ official website features a list of the company’s branches that did quite well in terms of raising their passenger turnover volume, but Sverdlovsk Region Railways did not make it to the list. ‘Our list does not comprise any of our subsidiaries whose passenger turnover