Bank24.ru joined the Association of Regional Banks of Russia (Association ‘Russia’) after the latter agreed to accept the company and provided it with a membership certificate (No. 419). ‘Professional unions of bankers are the crucial foundation for rapid and stable development of a country’s financial and crediting institutions. Any bank depends on its counterparts as well as on the functionality of the entire system. Bank guilds help to make this unwritten interdependency law work and promote the establishment of a win-win working environment,’ says Bank24.ru’s BOD Chairman Boris Dyakonov.

A new contactless way of making payments (the transaction is performed by dint of RF channels rather than magnetic scanning) has come to be known as VISA payWave. ‘The brand will probably be quite popular with VISA’s English-speaking customers since the name clearly reflects the method and the convenience of such payments: a payment which is made at a wave of a hand. A card holder only needs to wave their Visa card in front of a secure reader (much in the manner of a magnetic key) and the transaction is done,’ SKB-Bank’s Card Director Evgeniy Belichenko says. PayWave is a great addition to or

The State Duma is about to consider a bill on mediation, a kind of activity quite new to the country that poses a number of challenges Russian mediators will probably have to face. One issue has to do with the lawyers’ community attempt to monopolize the yet fledgling but a very promising market. A great many experts, however, are positive a mediator needs to be a good psychologist with a good deal of experience in the humanities rather than a legal expert, for his or her task is to facilitate the out-of-court settlement of a dispute that satisfies both parties’ interests. This is equally

URSA Bank’s Barnaul-based subsidiary participated in the 12th international fair devoted to construction, improvement, and interior design. The fair took place in Barnaul, Russia, on April 24-27, 2007. The event was supported by Siberian Builders Union, Altai Region Union of Builders and Investors, and the city council. 430 enterprises and organizations from 46 Russian cities based in 31 different regions as well as Ukrainian, Kazakh, and Polish companies, exhibited their projects altogether, with over 9,000 people coming to see them. URSA Bank contributed to the fair by organizing a seminar

Federal Antimonopoly Service in Sverdlovsk Region found the educational department of Nizhniy Tagil guilty of a breach of the federal law regarding placement of orders for the supply of goods and services for state and municipal needs and ordered the department to get rid of the violations. The case was brought about by a complaint from Parad Company that claimed the department had violated the competition law while placing its orders for the acquisition of a number of software programs meant for schools and colleges in 2007. The inquiry handled by Federal Antimonopoly Service revealed that

‘I agree with many experts, that is, I believe that petrol prices will go up to 20 RUR per litre at the most after the oil export duty is going to be raised this June. I don’t think fuel is going to get any more expensive than this,’ Director of Institute of Economics of the Ural branch of RAS Alexander Tatarkin said to UrBC. ‘All in all, the decision to raise oil export duty appears to be ungrounded. Some authorities just take the decisions that suit their needs without bothering to make it clear to people why these decisions have actually been taken,’ he noted. Beginning from June 1, 2007,

Following the request of Rostourism, Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs has recently informed the other countries’ diplomatic representations (both those based in Moscow and the federal subjects) that a new federal law on changes made in the rules for Russian travel agents (originally adopted on February 5, 2007) should come into force on June 1, 2007. The Ministry announced that travel agents should now be held financially accountable for certain problems they might cause to their customers; they should also ensure greater consumer rights protection and enhance the quality and safety of

Rostechnadzor (the state environmental and technologic safety watchdog) provided Sverdlovsk EnergoGas Company with a license entitling the latter to selling electricity to end users through order 248 signed by head of Rostechnadzor Konstantin Pulikovskiy on April 12, 2007. The licensing procedure was made obligatory after the corresponding provision 291 was issued by the Russian Federation Government on May 6, 2005. Sverdlovsk EnergoGas Company, the guaranteeing supplier of 20 municipalities in the region, is operating at the retail market, selling electricity at fares determined by the

‘Some of our customers (the housing maintenance and utilities services) haven’t paid their bills since 2003,’ the spokesperson for Uralsevergas Oleg Vlasov said to UrBC. Among these debtors are Krasnouralsk Chemical Plant (its debt comes to 139,377,700,000 RUR) and the housing maintenance and utilities unit of Prigorodniy district (Gornouralskiy municipality) with its 41,092,900,000 RUR worth of debts. Gornouralskiy housing unit, with its 13 million RUR worth of debt, hasn’t paid the company anything for 28 months, Degtyarsk-based Biosphere hasn’t been paying for 25 months (and its debt comes

Sverdlovsk Region division of Rospotrebnadzor (the state consumer rights watchdog) has been doing raids of poultry farms in order to avoid possible problems occasioned by the beginning of the spring migration of birds. 19 out of 22 regional farms have been inspected for bird flu and compliance with the safety and prevention rules over the last two months. The farms have to be of a closed type, possess sanitary inspection rooms and be equipped with insulated disinfection barrier zones as well as have enough disinfectants and personal protection equipment in stock. This activity has been

The officers from the local division of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the regional law-enforcement officers have recently taken a number of steps aimed at preventing economic crimes in the area; this has resulted in disclosing a series of financial frauds attributed to Bogdanovich Porcelain Works CFO. This executive is believed to have stolen 23 million RUR belonging to the company by transferring this money in the form of bill payments into the accounts of a fictitious firm that had allegedly sold the plant top-of-the-range equipment which, in fact, turned out to be a pile of

Rosselkhoznadzor (the state agricultural watchdog) banned the import of a few batches of meat produce proved to contain salmonellosis-related pathogens. These included 24.5 tons of U.S.-made chicken ribs, 24.9 tons of chicken wings and 25.9 tons of chicken legs from Brazil, and 19.9 tons of pork skins from Germany. This is why Rosselkhoznadzor set temporary limits on meat supplies from the U.S.-based Р-19128, Brazilian SIF 1797 and SIF 601, and German D SH-EUZ 10 EWG beginning from May 3, 2007. The agency asked the veterinary services in the U.S., Brazil, and Germany to look into the causes

Bank24.ru held a seminar on the modern savings techniques on April 24, 2007. The bank’s experts spoke on how to protect your money from inflation and make it yield profit; the company’s bill program appeared to receive the listeners’ greatest attention. ‘This is hardly surprising, as people are well aware of the benefits a bank deposit can offer, whereas bills of exchange are still a grey area to many of them. In the meantime, our bank’s bill schemes yield up to 13.75% a year, which is an interest rate not too many deposits can boast. Besides, a bill of exchange is a reliable way of making

The average existing home price in Yekaterinburg amounted to 67,055 RUR per square meter on April 24, 2007, reports the Analytical Department of Ural Chamber of Real Estate. The average existing home prices (per square meter of dwelling) in the center of Yekaterinburg (i.e. in Moskovskaya St., Chelyuskintsy St., Vostochnaya St., Dekabristy St., Belinskiy St., and Bolshakov St.) came to 80,357 RUR. The figure reached 70,472 RUR in Yekaterinburg’s most expensive residential area (Avtovokzal, Yugo-Zapadniy, Parkoviy, Botanicheskiy, Vtuzgorodok, Shartashskiy, ZhBI, Pionerskiy – downtown and the

MegaFon Ural, the mobile operator, decided to make international roaming cheaper for the summer period. All of the company’s subscribers will have every other minute of in-coming calls free as long as they are in the Holiday zone. What is more, an out-going text message will also be 20% less expensive and will only come to 12 RUR (VAT included). The offer is valid from May 1, 2007 to September 30, 2007. The Holiday zone comprises countries that are classed as Europe, America, and Other Countries in terms of their tariff zones. ‘People often have to limit themselves to shorter conversations

Sberbank of Russia introduced a special offer on May 2, 2007. Any customer using BLITZ money order or an international one in any of the bank’s Yekaterinburg-based subsidiaries will be able to get a DeltaTel phone card that provides for a free call to any Russian or foreign city. The amount of money you send does not matter. One can take advantage of the offer until May 8, 2007; the time span was chosen due to the fact that there are normally quite a few money orders at the beginning of May, so the bank’s clients can be in for a pleasant surprise. BLITZ takes about an hour for the addressee

Rosselkhoznadzor (the state agricultural watchdog) decided to allow some Polish bloodstock, born and raised at Polish farms certified for supplying pedigree cattle to Russia by both Russian and Polish vets, to be imported to Russia. The agency notified the EU Health and Consumer Protection Directorate General that it was willing to send a group of its experts to examine and certify Polish farms interested in supplying cattle to Russia. This visit might take place as early as this May, after the Polish authorities provide Rosselkhoznadzor with a list of such farms and the inspections schedule.

A new office of Ural Bank for Reconstruction and Development was set in operation in the course of a solemn ceremony on April 27, 2007. Yekaterinburg’s first bank-hosting skyscraper is located at the heart of the business quarter at 67 Sacco & Vanzetti St. The symbolic ribbon-cutting ritual was performed by the bank’s president Sergey V. Dymshakov, Head of the Central Bank of Russia in Sverdlovsk Region Sergey V. Sorvin, and Chair of the Union of Ural Bankers Valentina V. Muranova. At a press briefing that followed, the bank’s management spoke on the success of their business in 2006 and

Ural Airlines backed Russian Seasons XXI (Tamar and Scheherezade, two one-act ballets starring the Bolshoy and Maryinskiy Theaters’ leading dancers Nikolai Tsiskaridze, Ilse Liepa, Irma Nioradze, and Ilya Kuznetsov as well as the Kremlin Ballet dancers) that took place in Yekaterinburg on April 24-25, 2007. The carrier’s press officer reports that supporting such culturally promoting projects is one of most important directions in the airline’s corporate social responsibility program.

According to the Expert-Siberia magazine, profits made by Siberia’s largest banks went up nearly 100%, with approximately 60% of revenues attributed to URSA Bank; the same is true of net wealth indicators. URSA Bank was actually No. 1 in the net wealth rating as well as in the securities portfolio one. It also became Siberia’s major bank in terms of investments made by natural persons, the bank’s press officer says.