‘SKB-Bank introduced some new interest rates on deposits even before the Central Bank raised the refinancing rate,’ SKB-Bank’s Deposit Operations Director Denis Belogurov said to UrBC. The Bank of Russia increased the annual refinancing rate from 10.75% to 11% on July 11, 2008. ‘SKB-Bank raised the interest rate it offers on the Gold Standard deposit by 1% on July 1, 2008. In addition, the interest rate offered on World Standard, the bank’s most popular deposit, is to go up 1% and thus to reach 14.5% a year on August 1, 2008. This figure offsets even the most pessimistic inflation forecasts

Central Bank of Russia reports volume of loans given by Bank Uralfinance to sole traders for 181 days to 1 year went down by 49.89% (from 6.269 million RUR to 3.141 million RUR) in January-June 2008.

The spokesperson for Sinara Group reports SKB-Bank’s BOD Chairman Mikhail Khodorovskiy was elected the Chairman of Sinara Group’s Board of Directors. The company’s Board of Directors now consists of Dmitriy Pumpyanskiy, Alexander Braverman, Andrei Kaplunov, Adrian Cobb, Sergey Papin, Alexander Pumpyanskiy, Dmitriy Farber, Mikhail Khodorovskiy, Igor Khmelevskiy, and Alexander Shiryaev.

Ural Treasures Bank was given the 230th position in RosBusinessConsulting’s rating of Russia’s Top 500 most profitable banks (published on April 1, 2008). Besides, the bank was given the 108th position in Bankir.ru’s rating of the country’s 200 largest banks in terms of ATM turnover in April 2008, which was nine positions better than a year earlier. Then, Ural Treasures Bank was rated 189th largest bank in the first quarter of 2008 by RosBusinessConsulting and 91st position in Bankir.ru’s ranking of top 100 largest banks in terms of private individuals’ deposits compiled on May 1, 2008.

‘S7 Airlines started selling tickets for Yekaterinburg-Moscow and Yekaterinburg-Sochi flights on July 16, 2008. Both flights take off in Koltsovo airport of Yekaterinburg; to make this happen, we’ve negotiated with the airport and were given some confirmed time slots,’ S7 Airlines’ press officer Irina Kolesnikova said to UrBC. A little earlier, however, the Federal Antimonopoly Service reported they were considering suing Koltsovo airport for its reluctance to sign a slot agreement with S7 Airlines. ‘We’ve settled things down and are planning to launch flights from Yekaterinburg as soon as

According to the Central Bank of Russia, volume of loans given by Bank24.ru to private individuals for 181 days to 1 year dropped by 51.74% (from 27.573 million RUR to 13.306 million RUR) in January-June 2008.

Yekaterinburgnefteprodukt and LukoilPermnefteprodukt were found guilty of violating the federal legislation on the protection of competition, Sverdlovsk Region’s Federal Antimonopoly Service’s department director Yulia Anisimova said to UrBC. The two companies have been sued for a price collusion that involved AI 76 (80), AI 95 (96), and diesel fuel. The collusion lasted from January 1, 2007 to March 27, 2008. ‘These are two different organizations, so they work with different oil product suppliers; they have different transportation and storage terms, and so on. This is why they couldn’t

RBC daily reports Saint-Petersburg-based LSR Group made an official statement related to their recent acquisition of Yekaterinburg-based NOVA-Group (one of the local market’s major developers). According to LSR Group’s General Director Igor Levit, the enterprise has already invested some $500m in the development of the building industry in Sverdlovsk Region. The terms of the transaction state that LSR Group is to get NOVA Group’s land allotments and industrial enterprises, while the developer gets to keep its image-building projects. LSR Group is planning to set up a company responsible for

President of MMK Management Company Viktor Rashnikov signed a provision on raising the basic rates and wages for Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) employees. Both the rates and the wages are to go up by 9% on July 1, 2008; this is part of the general program aimed at raising MMK employees’ pay. This is the second time the increase in wages has been introduced this year: the basic rates and wages have already been raised by 5% in April 2008. This regular indexation allows the enterprise to make sure the metallurgists’ wages leave the inflation rate behind. In 2007, MMK workers’ average

Bank VTB’s Board of Directors decided to close down the company’s representation in India.

The Federal Antimonopoly Service looked into the country’s metallurgical market problems and took legal action against some of Mechel enterprises. These are: Mechel Trading Company, Yuzhniy Kuzbass, and Yakutugol, all of which can be charged with violation of competition protection law through abuse of their dominating position on the market. The Service is worried metallurgical coal and coal concentrate might become more expensive on the Russian market, so queries were sent to all the major producers in order to find out how much coal they were going to supply on the domestic market and how

Chelyabinsk-based SOT, a company dealing in production of pipeline bends and part of Rimera (ChTPZ Group’s O&G maintenance division) has been successfully audited by QS Azia Sertik (based in Alma-Ata, Kazakhstan) and proved the compliance of its quality management system with the ST RK ISO 9001-2001 standards. The above-mentioned standard has been adopted by the Republic of Kazakhstan as the official state standard and is based on the international ISO 9001:2000 one. The examination and assessment of its certified quality management system is necessary for SOT to be able to deliver its

SKB-Bank’s development indicators showed some impressive growth dynamics in the first half of 2008. The volume of the bank’s assets came to more than 35.9 billion RUR on July 1, 2008, which was over 6 billion RUR better than at the beginning of the year. SKB-Bank’s loan portfolio increased by 5.5 billion RUR and amounted to 24.8 billion RUR on July 1, 2008. As for the investments the bank managed to attract, these reached 31.4 billion RUR on July 1, 2008 compared with 27.2 billion RUR on January 1, 2008. The private individuals’ investment portfolio went up particularly fast by 3.3 billion

‘In terms of theory, paying dividends to Koltsovo airport’s shareholders looks a bit strange. As a rule, a company that keeps investing heavily in its own development does not normally declare any dividends. If a company is prepared to pay the dividends to its shareholders after all, this usually means there is no way of the company’s further development for the time being,’ Management Company’s Investment Director Alexander Metzger said to UrBC. In the meantime, Koltsovo airport’s last AGM resulted in the stockholders’ decision to declare 74,255,776 RUR worth of dividends for 2007, with

The Ural Bank for Reconstruction and Development raised its assets by 24.7% in the first half of 2008, so these reached 47,750,900,000 RUR on July 1, 2008. The bank’s balance sheet total rose by 42.2%, its loan portfolio went up by 19.8%. The amount of money deposited by the bank’s customers within the bank increased by 15.7% over the first half of 2008; this includes a 16.3% increase in the volume of private individuals’ deposits. The Ural Bank for Reconstruction and Development’s own funds reached 4,109,954,000 RUR on July 1, 2008, which exceeded the figures for January 1, 2008 by 17.6%,

Senior Public Prosecutor of Ural Federal District’s division of General Prosecutor’s Office Dmitriy Serebrennikov reports all the issues related to Bank24.ru’s former BOD member Alexei Kalinichenko’s extradition from Italy are being handled by the General Prosecutor’s Office’s Administration for International Legal Cooperation. The authorities reported on July 11, 2008 that the person who is believed to have masterminded a financial pyramid and to have stolen over a billion RUR was detained. Alexei Kalinichenko was arrested by Interpol officers in Italy in June 2008; this was done upon the

‘Our retail customers will be able to use our e-services in the very near future. We actually run some e-banking for private customers in the test mode at the moment, and the service is soon to become widely available,’ SKB-Bank’s BOD Chairman Mikhail Khodorovskiy said to UrBC. ‘On the whole, we are trying to shape our new and existing products in a way that answers our customers’ demands. We analyze the market needs and try to meet them by either launching new products or improving on the currently available ones, for example, through better terms and interest rates. We do our best to make

‘The Russian Federation Ministry of Finances was quick in reacting to the U.S. mortgage lending agencies’ problems and came up with an official statement fast, which is a good thing. The fact that only a portion of the Central Bank’s foreign and gold holdings and not the Reserve Fund or the National Welfare Fund’s reserves are invested in their bonds is another good thing. And, besides, the forex/gold holdings were invested in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s debt securities, not in their shares,’ Management Company’s Investment Director Alexander Metzger said to UrBC. Nevertheless, over $100bn,

Central Bank of Russia reports volume of loans given by Ural Innovational Commercial Bank to private individuals for 1 to 3 years dropped by 24.42% (from 6.48 million RUR to 4.897 million RUR) in January-June 2008.