BrokerCreditService Consulting Ltd. reports Olips paid 33,175,704 RUR worth of bills in May 2007 and kept working on its 4th promissory notes tranche. These promissory notes are valid for three months and are expected to yield 14.3% a year; they are to be paid by Commercial Bank Accept in Novosibirsk, SKB-Bank in Yekaterinburg, and Probusinessbank in Moscow. There is currently 93,333,632 RUR worth of promissory notes available altogether. According to BrokerCreditService Consulting Ltd., Olips is dealing in promissory notes in order to attract external resources so that it can get more

Bank24.ru came up with a new offer known as Get Practical and Use Your Visa for its Visa-possessing customers. In order to use the offer, you simply have to use the bank’s Visa card to pay at least a 300-ruble bill in any shop or café in Russia and sign the receipt. The offer is valid between June 1, 2007 and July 31, 2007 and provides for a super prize (a family trip to Shopping Festival in Dubai in January 2008) and 1,000 3,000-ruble gift certificates that you can use to buy home appliances and consumer electronics in Eldorado chain stores.

Chairman of Severnaya Kazna and BoD member Andrei Volchik reduced his share in the bank’s authorized capital from 7.995% to 7.044%, or by .951%. BoD member Vladimir Volman raised his share from 1.303% to 1.637%, or by .334%; BoD member Vladimir Rodionov increased his share holding from 1.303% to 1.637%, or by .334%. This is the second time Andrei Volchik redistributes his shares, since he reduced his share from 10.024% to 7.995% on April 25, 2007. This information was released in compliance with the regulation that a joint stock investment company should report all the changes that can

Aviaprad’s Boeing-737 flying from Moscow had to perform an emergency landing in Koltsovo airport of Yekaterinburg at 12.40 AM on June 3, 2007. The windshield in the cockpit got broken, the airport’s press officer says. Both the passengers and the crew arrived in Yekaterinburg safe and sound.

According to the Central Bank of Russia, volume of loans given by Sverdlovsk Gubernskiy Bank to profit-making NGOs despite overdraft account went down by 33.8% (from 160.364 million RUR to 106.047 million RUR) in January-May 2007.

Governor of Chelyabinsk Region Petr Sumin chaired an administration meeting on June 4, 2007 and evaluated the report presented by Minister for Radiation and Environmental Safety Gennady Podtesov regarding the state of events in the region’s mining area where a number of emergencies took place on June 1, 2007. Two people were killed by a hurricane, with two more currently located in the hospital’s intensive care unit. The electricity and water supplies have been almost fully restored by now, which took over 400 people and all the emergency headquarters’ work to do. The damage is estimated at

The Central Bank of Russia reports that volume of loans given by AGROPROMBANK to profit-making NGOs for 1 to 3 years went down 8.4% (from 1,949,182,000 RUR to 1,784,328,000 RUR) in January-April 2007

According to Sverdlovsk Region Ministry of Finances, regional budget expenditures came to 27.275 million RUR, or 24.2% of the estimated annual figures in January-April 2007. Healthcare and sports spending received 25.3% of the yearly sum, social welfare programs have been financed by 21.8%. Some finances meant for 2007 have been invested in education (23.7%), culture and media (25.4%), national security and law enforcement (24.7%), national economy (24.2%), housing maintenance and utilities (27.7%).

Interfax CEA has recently come up with its new Interfax 100 Russian Banks ranking that states that the Ural Bank for Reconstruction and Development is Ural Federal District’s most lucrative bank. Its pre-tax profit amounted to 316.5 million RUR in the first quarter of 2007, making the bank Russia’s No.41 among 100 largest banks in the country. ‘The Ural Bank for Reconstruction and Development is one of the major retail banks in the Urals and thus always does great in terms of natural persons’ deposits; it hits 29th among Russia’s 1,015 banks. Research has shown that the bank manages to meet

ROSNO-MS acquired 100% of shares of Tagil Medservice Ltd., a local insurer. ROSNO-MS reports the newly bought company will keep operating under the original brand, whereas its activity is going to be brought in compliance with the international customer service standards.

Law-enforcement officers of Ural Federal District have been trying hard to fight offences in the field of fuel and energy complex; according to the public prosecution authorities of Ural Federal District, complex inspections and surveillance measures have already resulted in prevention of 500 crimes, including 1,873 cases of theft, more than 80 cases of illegal entrepreneurial activity, 140 attempts of large-scale tax evasion, 35 cases of money-laundering, and 54 environmental offenses related to poaching of mineral resources. Most cases have already been processed in local courts, with

A tender was held for completing the construction of the local TV tower in Yekaterinburg after the following requests had been made by the President and the Russian Federation Government. The procedure was coordinated by representatives of Russian TV and Radio Network, Rosimuschestvo (the federal property monitoring agency), Rospechat (the state press agency), Yekaterinburg’s chief architect Mikhail Vyatkin, and Pavel Nikanorov of Sverdlovsk Region Ministry of State Property Management. SelTechCom, the winner, was allowed to finish the TV tower provided that 2,350 square meters of the tower

According to the Central Bank of Russia, volume of loans given by GRAN Bank to natural persons for 181 days to 1 year went down 42% (from 5.415 million RUR to 3.115 million RUR) in January-April 2007.

According to the Central Bank of Russia, volume of nonresident legal entities’ deposits in Uralfinpormbank valid for 181 days to 1 year went down 100% (from 11.905 million RUR to zero) in January-April 2007.

Recent rumors have it that there may have occurred some changes in the way UIC Bank’s shares are owned since some of the stockholders are reported to have sold their holdings to a large external investor. The names of the possible purchaser and of the sellers haven’t been revealed yet. The bank was reluctant to answer UrBC’s official query. ‘I’m afraid I can’t tell you much about the changes in the company at the moment; our Board has not come up with any announcements yet,’ UIC Bank’s Marketing, Advertising and PR Director Natalia Savinova said to UrBC. Ms Savinova suggested that chairman of

Since Chelyabinsk Region’s budget received 2.9 billion RUR more than had originally been planned, Governor Petr Sumin decided to invest 300 million RUR in healthcare development. The Governor called for elimination of hospital lines and illegitimate fees for medicines, bandages, and medical gloves that the patients are supposed to get for free. This is why most of this money is going to be spent on medications and hospital supplies. As regards the waiting lines, part of the sum is to be invested in creating electronic patient databases that are expected to speed up the reception clerks’ work

‘We keep getting complaints about Russian Standard Bank, and the number of those has increased even further after the media announced some banks were violating the loan-giving regulations. There are a few banks that make their customers unhappy, but most applications we get have to do with Russian Standard Bank,’ Elena Bogacheva of Rospotrebnadzor (the state consumer rights watchdog) in Sverdlovsk Region said to UrBC. ‘Our regional division has recently considered filing an administrative suit against the bank. The decision was taken because of a great number of clients’ complaints.

Bank24.ru’s processing center celebrated its 3d anniversary in May 2007. The center was created for servicing VISA cards; 15,000 cards for both individuals and legal entities have been issued so far, with the balance of all accounts coming to more than 660 million RUR, the bank’s press officer reports. This success can be explained by Bank24.ru’s continuous striving for high quality service for all the card holders, available 24/7 in any country of the world. If one happens to lose the bank’s Visa Gold, the bank guarantees that a duplicate or cash will be delivered to any spot on the globe.

Public Prosecutor of Sverdlovsk Region Pavel Kukushkin chaired a meeting devoted to anti-raiding policies. It was said that regional law-enforcement agencies were not using their powers well enough to prevent illegal takeovers; for example, only 29 raiding-related rimes were reported in 2003-2006, with criminal suits filed in most cases afterwards. Mr. Kukushkin observed that this little efficiency could be blamed upon both the municipal and district prosecutors who failed to monitor how well the anti-raiding legislation was complied with. The attendees decided to enforce their preventive

Yekaterinburg municipal Duma committee looked into the report on the city’s budget spending in the first quarter of 2007, Duma’s press officer reports. According to Head of Yekaterinburg Finance and Budget Administration Andrei Koryukov, budget revenues amounted to about 3.103 billion RUR (which comes to 23.1% of the annual planned figures), budget expenditures reached 2.655 billion (which comes to 23.1% of the annual planned figures). So far, all the municipal projects the city’s budget is supposed to cover have been implemented by 8%.