The Bank of Russia came up with data on bank card transactions performed in different Russian regions in the third quarter of 2007. Moscow and Moscow Region, with their 44.8 million cardholders, and Saint Petersburg, with its 4.6 million cardholders, were traditionally the most developed parts of the country in this respect, while Sverdlovsk Region was given the fourth position. There were over 3 million registered cardholders there on October 1, 2007.

SKB-Bank reports the region’s dwellers performed 19.2 million bank card transactions worth 72 million RUR in July-September 2007. Actually, they used their bank cards 40% more often than before, while Sverdlovsk Region’s banks issued 30% more cards to their customers against a year earlier. As for SKB-Bank, it has recently celebrated the arrival of the 400,000th plastic card.