Bank Severnaya Kazna (the asset of Alfa-Bank) introduced some fines for its business customers. The first fines were actually launched as early as October 2009 but it was only after they got their bank statements that the customers found out that the cost of account maintenance and account transactions had increased considerably.

According to the bank’s official website news, the maintenance of type B account (which means the customer must bring paper copies of all the payment documents to the bank) now costs 10,000 RUR for all companies that use the bank’s services. The price holds as long as some transactions are performed during a certain period of time. The maintenance of type A account (which means e-banking services are available and bank statements are sent to the customer by e-mail) costs 6,500 RUR.

What is more, each payment order (when money is transferred from a customer’s account to some other banks) now costs 200 RUR for type B account holders and 70 RUR for type A account holders (in which case the money order has to be carried out electronically). If a type A account holder makes a traditional, paper-based money order, this will also cost 200 RUR per order.

As it happens, Yekaterinburg banking market offers prices for account maintenance and money orders that are on average five the ten times cheaper than Bank Severnaya Kazna’s charges.

It could be that the bank’s new owners have launched this disadvantageous pricing policy in order to make their business customers stop using Bank Severnaya Kazna’s services and switch to the parent enterprise’s ones. In fact, Alfa-Bank’s charges look more attractive in comparison to those of Bank Severnaya Kazna.