Ural Treasures Bank decreased the interest rate and the incidental commission on its Express Cash loan scheme. These will be lowered by 1% on March 20-31, 2008. Besides, one won’t need any income statement, however much one would like to borrow from the bank. The other terms of credit are to remain the same.

‘We’ve come up with a new advertising framework this year, so we are going to use some new characters in our ads now,’ says SKB-Bank’s Chairman Vladimir Pukhov. ‘We are through with the old ladies we used to have in our commercials, however sad it makes us feel. The bank’s new ad strategy will rely on the Soviet-style posters,’ he notes. ‘This new campaign’s logic is quite simple: not all things were bad during the Soviet times, there were some positive moments, too, and there are plenty of people who have some sort of nostalgia for those days. Besides, some seemingly bygone elements of the

Sberbank of Russia re-introduced a freshly redecorated office in Magnitogorsk, Chelyabinsk Region. The office is located at 21 Voroshilov St. Customers (mostly private individuals rather than businesses) coming to this outlet can take advantage of the whole range of quality banking services, including various loans, deposit operations, exchange of currency, operations with bank cards, money orders, payment of housing bills, and much else besides. Deputy CEO of Sberbank’s Magnitogorsk branch Yuri Emelyanov announced in the course of the solemn opening ceremony that expanding the bank’s

MOTIV, the telecommunications group, is about to launch one of its newest services known as Private Virtual Network – a sort of intranet that will provide geographically extended companies with some reliable and safe communication, MOTIV’s press officer reports. Virtual Private Network is based on the Multi Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) technology that is most efficient in terms of traffic transfer compared with its existing counterparts. VPN can be flexible and multifunctional, as customers can choose among the many options of IP traffic transfer with differing service classes. The network

‘The major problem today’s economic security market is faced with is habitual stereotypes. A business normally has some economic security services to protect it. A company is used to these services, but is incapable of evaluating the quality of the job they do: the larger a business is, the more intricate the job is. To assess the services’ performance, one has to have a lot of expertise in the field,’ Oleg Borisov, the General Director of Europe-Asia, the information and consulting center, said to UrBC. ‘On the other hand, this expertise is not something that universal auditors may

United Company RUSAL bought a cathode plant in the People’s Republic of China, the company’s press officer said to UrBC. The plant’s capacity comes to 9,300 tons of cathode stacks a year at the moment, but RUSAL is hoping to raise the cathode output to 20,900 tons by 2010. This project will require more than $20m in terms of investments. The plant is situated within 600 kilometers of Beijing and was originally put up in 2001. The enterprise specializes in cathode stack production (these stacks being one of the elements of an electrolysis bath needed for aluminum production) and has become

The value of net assets of Energy – Mixed Investments (the unit investment trust) managed by Eurogreen Management Company Ltd. went down by 3.2% between March 14, 2008 and March 17, 2008. According to Eurogreen’s website, the company’s net assets decreased from 2,964,941.13 RUR on March 14, 2008 to 2,870,044.53 RUR on March 17, 2008.

Central Bank of Russia reports volume of loans given by Khanty-Mansiyskiy Bank to state-run for-profit organizations despite overdraft went down by 81.25% (from 54.608 million RUR to 10.239 million RUR) between January 1, 2008 and February 1, 2008.

MegaFon Ural was the first of the Urals’ three leading mobile operators to decrease the cost of mobile Internet connection by 43%. In addition, the company launched a number of new offers like Internet 250 MB and Internet 1,500 MB for active users and 1,000 Text Messages for those who enjoy texting. If you buy big portions of traffic, it costs you much less. If you use Internet 1,500 MB, for example, you’ll only pay 1.3 RUR per megabyte (all taxes included). ‘Our flexible market policies and reacting promptly to the customers’ needs mean we can make voice communication, as well as data

Ural Airlines’ passengers traveling business class can now use a set of personal items consisting of earplugs, some warm slippers, a shoe horn, some wet wipes for leather shoes and products, and sleep goggles aboard the plane. ‘The airline keeps trying to create a cozy and homey atmosphere aboard its planes. This is particularly important for business people who have to go on trips all the time and often find themselves waking up in the sky. These are mainly the passengers who use our morning flights to Moscow that take off at 6.50 AM and 9.30 AM. We have made changes in these flights’

‘We have always preferred to settle down our conflicts peacefully, but we haven’t been able to reach any compromise with UralTransBank yet. This is why we have to go to court. We never contested our master agreement; we only said that the stop-loss proviso was a very important part of the agreement for us. Then, we declared the additional agreement on the changes in the insured event was invalid,’ says ROSNO’s Corporate Management Director Alexander Cheryarin. In the meantime, UralTransBank, having insured its financial risks related to bad debt on consumer loans with ROSNO, claims they

‘Atomstroycomplex hasn’t had to face a single threat of administrative liability since the beginning of the year, let alone liability related to a missing construction permit. We only had some minor fines last year, only one of which had to do with construction permits, and we fixed things promptly then,’ the builder’s PR Department reports. In the meantime, Ivan Rabtsevitch, head of Sverdlovsk Region’s division of the state construction authority, announced at a recent press conference that the construction of 110 buildings (including 50 buildings in Yekaterinburg) had to be halted. This

United Company RUSAL has by now stopped accepting applications for its One Hundred Sports Project and Green Watch Projects. The One Hundred Sports Project contest was held from January 22, 2008 to March 13, 2008, with more than 134 applicants from twenty-two different Russian and Ukrainian locations taking part in the event. Incidentally, fourteen applications came from Krasnoyarsk. The contest was targeted at developing amateur backyard sports and raising a healthy younger generation. Applicants offered projects on sports clubs, sports events and competitions, and competed for grants they

The bank’s official website informs the customers that since March 21 and March 24, 2008 are public holidays in Germany, Severnaya Kazna is not going to handle any outward euro payments on these days. All the euro payments and stock trading operations will be performed on Tuesday, March 25, 2008, though.

RusRating confirmed the rating of SKB-Bank’s 01 ruble bond issue at BB-, Stable Outlook. All in all, the agency rated the securities of nineteen Russian banks (including three Ural ones), SKB-Bank’s press officer said to UrBC. RusRating reports the rating given to the bank’s bond issue was based on SKB-Bank’s credit rating, the lack of factors that could either enhance or minimize the risks, and the relatively unfelt influence the bonds have on the bank’s general cash flow and financial activity. According to the agency’s top executives, the ruble bond market is likely to develop very

Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Eduard Rossel held talks with a group of METRO Cash & Carry representatives headed by the company’s Director for Russia and Ukraine Andrea Martinelli. The company already runs two stores in Yekaterinburg, so the Governor suggested considering other cities in the region such as Nizhniy Tagil and Kamensk-Uralskiy. Besides, Eduard Rossel came up with the idea of putting up a logistics terminal. In the end, the parties agreed that one more store in Yekaterinburg is needed. Mr. Martinelli said the company would think about launching stores in the region’s other

‘Koltsovo airport is bound to decrease the jet fuel prices after LUKoil sets up another filling station there. It’s hard to say, however, just when this is going to happen. It will take the company between eighteen and twenty-four months at best to get all the papers ready, and about twelve months to complete the construction,’ says Aviaport Agency’s Analytics Director Oleg Panteleev. Mr. Panteleev reports LUKoil-AERO’s products can boast good quality and meet all the demands, but the prices that are great enough already will probably grow a bit higher at first for the company to get a return

SKB-Bank’s equity capital reached 5.123 billion RUR, which is over 1 billion RUR better than the figures reached by any other Sverdlovsk Region-based bank. This also makes SKB-Bank Ural Federal District’s third largest bank. Besides, this impressive result means the bank can significantly expand its business. ‘Plentiful funds guarantee a bank’s financial stability, so, having set the 5-billion-ruble record, SKB-Bank can do much more on Russia’s financial market. We are now capable of offering even more loans to both businesses and private individuals while retaining the relatively low

‘Everything Mayak Corporation says is untrue. The apartments the company was obliged to allocate to militia only concerned two newly put up buildings,’ Mayor of Yekaterinburg Arkadiy Chernetskiy claimed in the course of a monthly meeting on the local construction projects chaired by Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Eduard Rossel. The Mayor referred to the apartment blocks in Bazoviy Lane, Yekaterinburg. Mayak Corporation’s President Marina Konkova, who made a report at the meeting as well, said the buildings couldn’t get commissioned because of the municipal authorities’ counterwork. ‘We suggest

Sverdlovsk Region has for a long time remained Ural Federal District’s leading area in terms of the number of operating banks: there are currently twenty-five of them in the region, according to the Central Bank’s report as of March 1, 2008. Tyumen Region, with its twenty-three banks, and Khanty-Mansiyskiy Autonomous Region, with its twelve banks, are the district’s second and third most developed regions in terms of banks’ presence. Sverdlovsk Region is only outstripped by Moscow, with its 554 banks, Saint Petersburg, with its forty-one banks, Dagestan, with its thirty-three banks, and