ISB Bank (Investment and Savings Bank) published a report on Sverdlovsk Region’s banking activity in January-September 2006.

Inter-bank loans have remained the cheapest way of finding additional finances, even though (given the current market opportunities) the annual interest rates have been going up for three months already (from 3.98% to 5%, or by 1.02%).

In the course of the repurchase agreement auction held by the Bank of Russia at the end of October, the interest rates were set at 6.05%-6.3% a year, so the average annual interest rate of 2% to 4% signifies the over-liquidity of the market over the previous months.

Sixteen banks used the legal entity accounts belonging to non-financial bodies; the average interest rate thus went down from 10% to 8.97% a year. All of the region’s twenty-five banks used the natural person accounts (the ruble ones); twenty-one banks used the natural person accounts stocking dollars. The annual interest rates on ruble and euro deposits went up .05% and .09% respectively, the interest rate on dollar deposits increased from 7.98% to 8.25% a year, or by .27%. The latter was brought about by the growing of the dollar/ruble exchange rate.