Chairman of Moscow-based Rus-Bank Vladimir Balabanov was appointed Chairman of Ural Treasures Bank’s Board of Directors. Prior to this appointment, Mr. Balabanov was one of the BOD members.

The bank’s new BOD was elected in the course of an extraordinary general meeting in October 2007. Three Rus-Bank executives were elected. These were Vladimir Balabanov, Alexander Danilin, and Veronica Urvantseva. On November 27, 2007, Rus-Bank announced it had bought a 98.42% shareholding of Ural Treasures Bank.

'Rus-Bank only entered the Urals a little while ago, so we decided to improve our position on the market through cooperating with some local bank. We did a lot of research and are now positive that we made the best possible choice. We’ll do our best to make sure doing business with Ural Treasures Bank becomes both exciting and efficient. We’ve got great plans, a wonderful team, and splendid opportunities, so we have everything we need to become one of both the Urals and Russia’s most prominent financial market players,’ Mr. Balabanov said.

As for Ural Treasures Bank’s customers, they can now enjoy a wider product range, new banking technologies, extended subsidiary network, more ATMs and POS terminals. In addition, the two banks’ joint program on loans to small and medium-scale businesses became available this January.