OREANDA-NEWS. June 25, 2008. By winning a public procurement auction, Sviaz-Bank has been awarded a contract by the Government of Ulyanovsk Region to issue and service social security cards to be issued to the region’s residents through 2008. The contract commits the Bank to issuing social security cards and crediting the cardholders’ accounts with social security transfers.

Sviaz-Bank started working on a pilot project to develop a social security card for residents of Ulyanovsk Region in 2007. When through, it offered the regional government to issue and handle social security cards on the best available terms it could afford. Over 10,000 cards have been issued so far within the framework of the project. The region’s residents on welfare rolls will now have social security benefits credited direct to their card accounts, make electronic transfers, add whatever funds they want to their social security card accounts, and draw cash from post office POS, or Sviaz-Bank’s own ATMs.

Already in 2008, the Bank has launched a full-scale effort to get the project going. It plans to issue at least 30,000 social security cards until the end of this year.

“We realize, of course, the role of social security for the population, and we give our best to keep up social security projects by working closely together with regional authorities to launch social security projects built around our Bank’s plastic cards,” Sviaz-Bank’s Senior Vice President Arkady Komiaginsky summed up.