vlad.tribnet.com / Issue #151 / Business / Reading article...

DalRybBank will install 16 automatic teller machines in Vladivostok, Nakhodka, and Ussurisk by the start of next year, according to bank Deputy Director Aleksei Drobishevsky.

The bank will also install two machines in the recently opened Hyundai Hotel – one dispensing rubles, and the other, a Visa/Mastercard machine, dispensing dollars.

Outside the Hyundai Hotel, however, machines will offer only rubles. The ATMs have been designed to accept the Golden Crown debit card, which DalRyb offers all its clients. The card also works with card-swiping terminals in shops.

After additional software testing, it is possible that machines will be able to take Visa and Mastercard credit cards late next year, said Eugene Pojitkov, Manager of Marketing and Business Promotion at DalRybBank.

And yet further in the future, machines may accept bank cards on the Plus system, allowing foreigners to access their own accounts from the machines, he said. Still, all transactions will be conducted in rubles, said Pojitkov.

ATM will help bring banking services closer to clients, Drobishevksky said, and a $700,000 grant from the World Bank will pay for them.

Of DalRybBank’s 40,000 clients, a third use the Golden Crown card. It is estimated that more than 300,000 people across Russia use similar cards. Bankers hope these will reestablish consumers’ faith in the Russian banking system.