Certificate of issuing the 100,000th Visa card was granted to Dmitriy Ljvovich Orlov, the Chairman of the Bank Vozrozhdeniye by Lou Naumovsky, Vice-President of Visa CEMEA and Director of Visa International Moscow Office.

Substantial increase in issuing bankcards of international payment systems was due to transition from local cards to international cards carried out by the Bank since the 3rd quarter of 2001. Out of 300,000 cards issued by the Bank, the Visa cards (Electron, Classic, Gold, Business) and the cards based on the Visa Plus payment programme total 165,000 items, the cards of MasterCard system (Cirrus/Maestro, Mass, Gold, Business) make 57,000 items and local cards - 78,000 items. The Bank's strategy provides for complete replacement of local cards and the cards based on the Visa Plus programme with international cards within the 3rd quarter of 2003.

Throughout the year, the total amount of funds on the Bank's customer card accounts grew 1.9 times, as compared to the year 2001, and topped RUR 7.3 billion. Special card account balances doubled since the beginning of the year and amounted RUR 950 ml. The amount of transactions through the Bank's ATMs exceeded RUR 3.8 ml.

The Bank's card processing infrastructure covers 162 ATMs and 155 cash advance outlets. The Bank maintains contractual relations with 600 retailers and service providers accepting our cards. The Bank is a Principal Member of Visa and MasterCard payment systems and issues bankcards through its own Processing Centre. Since September 2001 the Bank has been servicing the cards of the Union Card payment system.