‘Today, the merger of large banks is normally followed by a re-branding campaign. VTB, for one, is a striking example of large-scale re-branding brought about by some external rather than internal factors. One should bear in mind that a re-branding campaign will always be successful as long as it is launched properly,’ says Viktor Nemikhin, the executive of BrokerCreditService Company Ltd. ‘However, the success of such campaigns can also depend on the bank’s marketing policy. Coming up with the image and the slogan alone is not enough; the bank’s name must be made simple and recognizable. VTB

Yekaterinburg Consumer Rights Committee got three claims against Yugoria Insurance Company in eleven months of 2006. This comes to approximately 6% of the total number of claims laid against insurance companies, the spokesperson for the committee said to UrBC representative. This authority received 54 complaints in January-November 2006, the main cause usually being the insurer’s refusal to pay the whole awarded compensation sum or not paying the insured in full.

‘HydroSpetsStroy Ltd. (the general contractor of Noviy Grad, the local builder) has so far refused to meet the demands of Sverdlovsk Region Court of Arbitration, that is, to produce the documents about the company’s financial and economic state. This is why the officers of justice are going to visit their premises and look into the matter,’ the company’s trustee in bankruptcy Olga Rushitskaya said to UrBC representative. ‘Within five months of external management, nothing whatsoever has changed about the situation in HydroSpetsStroy, since the builder never got in touch with me in any way,’

‘We still haven’t been able to open the winter season because of the warm weather. Our ski-tracks have 10 to 15 centimeters of loose snow, and what we need is 40 to 50 centimeters that will pack down to 10-15 centimeters. We haven’t got any snow-producing equipment: when the resort was set up in 1999, there was plenty of snow and no one actually thought we might need extra facilities to cover our tracks with snow. In this kind of weather, though, even having the equipment wouldn’t make a lot of difference, it just doesn’t work if the temperature is anything above zero. The special

Metallurgical Industrial Complex of Nizhniy Tagil conducted the first Managing Director School workshop for 14 young employees. The Complex experts designed this project for middle-level managers under 35 who could thus get the best managerial skills and qualifications in the course of an intensive training program. For two days, the workshop participants had to learn the basics of teamwork as well as absorb the information during the mini-lectures and look at the issues connected with effective team performance. They also did special tests and exercises to determine the range of team player

On December 5, 2006, the average price of one square meter of existing homes in the center of Yekaterinburg (i.e. in Moskovskaya St., Chelyuskintsy St., Vostochnaya St., Dekabristy St., Belinskiy St., and Bolshakov St.) rose by 4.8% compared with November 14, 2006, reports the Analytical Department of the Ural Chamber of Real Estate. The prices rose by 3.3% in Yekaterinburg’s most expensive residential area (Avtovokzal, Yugo-Zapadniy, Parkoviy, Botanicheskiy, Vtuzgorodok, Shartashskiy, ZhBI – downtown and the south-west and the south-east of the city), by 4.8% in the city’s second most

‘The structure of ingoing and outgoing calls traffic of MegaFon hasn’t changed after the federal bill made all the ingoing calls free on July 1, 2006. This means that the predicted post-CPP (calling party pays) traffic imbalance has been avoided,’ MegaFon Deputy GD Alexei Nechiporenko announced at the press conference. ‘The ingoing calls traffic, however, went up 3% (from 6% to 9%). The prime cost of entering our mobile network now comes to 1.10 RUR to 1.60 RUR per minute depending on the region,’ Mr Nechiporenko said. ‘In the meantime, MegaFon has been negotiating with other mobile operators

Uralvneshtorgbank was awarded for competing the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development Trade Financing Program. The bank joined the program in October 2005, upon receiving a $7m line of credit. The excellent performance of the bank’s trade financing experts and its impressive transaction portfolio made Uralvneshtorgbank Russia’s leading regional crediting organization. It was supported by some large foreign investors such as ACE Global Markets (AGM), Catlin Syndicate 2003, XL Syndicate 1209, and Kiln Syndicate 510 at Lloyd’s of London, therefore the European Bank for Reconstruction

‘The notion of bank secrecy appeared in 1990, but, since it was quite a long time ago, some problems appear to arise due to a possible legal loophole: on the one hand, the authorities are allowed to demand that the banks produce records that can be classed as a secret, on the other hand, the banks are allowed to refuse to do so in some cases. This is why the legal definition of bank secrecy is still a burning issue,’ the Deputy Chairman of Ural Bankers’ Union Evgeniy Bolotin said to UrBC representative, relating to the recent proposal by the State Duma Deputies about the limitation of the

Sverdlvosk Gubernskiy Bank started accepting Union Card payments for mobile service and satellite televison on December 8, 2006. The payments can be made in Yekaterinburg, Asbest, Nizhniy Tagil, and Sukhoi Log. The Union Card holders living in these towns can now make payments to MTS, Beeline, MegaFon, BaikalWestCom, Motive, Tele2-Russia, Skylink, and NTV-Plus. The bank will start dealing with payments to MegaFon Ural, Utel, and some other companies in the near future. The bank has already been accepting Visa and MasterCard for such transactions via 74 ATMs in Yekaterinburg and Sverdlovsk

SibAcademBank summed up the results of its activity in the eleven moths of 2006.. The bank’s net assets grew by 27% in November and amounted to 75,323m RUR on December 1, 2006, which exceeds the figures for January-November 2005 by 3.2 times. Their balance sheet total came to 99,050m RUR on December 1, 2006, which is 3.6 times better that a year earlier. The bank’s equity basis reached the point of 9,286m RUR, which exceeds the figures for December 1, 2005 by 3.7 times. Their loan portfolio and corporate portfolio have also grown by 3.5 times and 2.9 times, respectively in one year, with the

‘We don’t believe raising tobacco produce prices is going to result in the cheap cigarette shortage or even disappearance,’ the Planter Department Director of Omega Spirits Ltd. Dmitry Shlayen said to UrBC representative relating to the increased tobacco prices imposed due to the excise duty stamps becoming more expensive starting January 1, 2007. ‘This increase is not the one of a large-scale sort, the prices are not going to soar dramatically, and, besides, the customer will still have a choice in terms of prices, since the expensive kinds of cigarettes are to grow more pricey as well, and

The interregional department of Rostechnadzor (the technical safety monitoring authority) in the Ural Federal District is to inspect the compliance of the regional mining companies with the safety requirements in the course of trolley-handling in the grooves before December 10, 2006. These inspections have to do with the death of an employee of Ural Mining and Metallurgical Company that occurred in Severnaya mine of Berezovsk Ore Management Ltd. belonging to the company. The investigation of this accident has already been completed. According to the spokesperson for Rostechnadzor, the

‘Our company has been using MegaFon Ural since 2003. We decided to cooperate with them because it is MegaFon Ural that always offers its clients most attractive terms among those available on the market,’ the General Director of UralPromOborudovaniye Production Association Andrei A. Besedin said to UrBC representative. ‘We are fully satisfied with their policy, namely, coming up with a unique kind of approach to each client. Our company has a personal manager who handles all the issues related to providing mobile services to us. In addition, this manager takes into account all the proposals

‘We have no complaints in terms of the quality of electric appliances and phones produced by Panasonic. Yet we are already experiencing some problems with the supply: our shop can now offer less than it used to, and the delivery has been delayed. If our dealers actually stop supplying the goods of this company altogether, our sales will drop dramatically, as Panasonic has a very large share of the market that is not going to be made up for by any other producers. No other company, for example, can offer so many private branch exchanges and the same value for the money,’ the spokesperson for

‘The need for the gradual growth of the insurance companies’ capital was emphasized in the existing legislation long time ago; the insurers who find themselves unable to raise their capital are driven out of the market, and their leave remains largely unheeded,’ says Valeriy Poroshin, Deputy Director of Ingosstrakh Insurance Company in Yekaterinburg. ‘Increasing the company’s authorized capital is crucial to enhancing its stability, reliability, and solvency. I believe the first companies to be affected by this will be the local, so-called ‘pocket’ companies set up by large industrial

‘Large federal banking networks normally merge and launch a re-branding campaign in order to become more easily recognized. This brand recognition determines the ‘penetration level’ essential to the market competition. Another reason to opt for re-branding is getting ready for a public offering of the bank’s shares,’ reports the General Director of Blagodat Securities Investment Company Vsevolod Chaschin on the re-branding campaigns by some Russian banks. When they do re-branding, the banks hope to hit a particular target audience, a group of clients who reflect the new bank’s strategy. Times

‘The increase in the excise duty might lead to the shortage of cheap tobacco produce,’ the Merchandise Expert of Megamart Trade Center Andrei Kholmanskikh said to UrBC representative, commenting on the excise duty stamps becoming more expensive starting January 1, 2007. ‘This may happen due to the fact that some of the producers will fail to switch to the new stamping,’ Mr Kholmanskikh observed. ‘There is little our trade center can do on its own: if the suppliers manage to do everything on time, we’ll have no shortage,’ he noted.

According to the Bank of Russia, the Russian crediting organizations have issued 1,797,000,000,000 RUR worth of consumer loans by October 1, 2006, of which 85% are the ruble loans. This means that the ruble loans are currently six times more popular than the foreign currency ones. According to the Central Bank of Russia, the most popular kinds of loans are the ruble ones given for a term of six months to 1 year (the number of such loans is three times greater than that of the loans given for a term of over 3 years). Today, crediting is the most dynamically developing banking product.

‘The investigation of HydroSpetsStroy (the general contractor of Noviy Grad, the developer) activity is still going on,’ the Head of the Investigative Division of the department of internal affairs in Yekaterinburg (Leninskiy District) Irina Overina said to UrBC representative. ‘We have seized their accounting documents and searched their office, so now we have some new data for the inquiry. The information is now being processed,’ Ms Overina said. The Department commenced criminal action against the General Director of Noviy Grad Yuri Repeta on May 22, 2006.