OREANDA-NEWS. December 12, 2008. In March 2008 the first announcement concerning the acquisition of 100% of Expobank was made by Barclays, and the completion date was on the 2nd July 2008. At the present moment a set of activities is being carried out to complete the procedure of the bank's renaming, reported the press-centre of BTA Bank.

Sergey Radchenkov, Chief Executive, Barclays Bank LLC, remarked: "We have been looking forward to and preparing for this event which will allow us to present a new financial brand on the Russian market. We are developing and testing operational systems, enlarging our staff considerably and recruiting specialists required. The following step will be to implement a new product line. We will continue to develop Barclays-branded products and services that meet the evolving needs of our customers and clients, in compliance with Barclays Group standards, with a goal of making them available as early as in spring 2009. An announcement will be made on these developments at the appropriate time."

Ahmed Khizer Khan, Chief Executive, Barclays GRCB Emerging Markets, added: "Russia for Barclays is one of the most rapidly developing markets with very strong potential. We are delighted with the progress made towards integrating Barclays Russia with the wider Barclays Group. The renaming of the bank is an important step that will allow us to build the Barclays global brand in Russia."

Barclays Russia begun the process of rebranding the bank under the Barclays name, with the first branch in Moscow having already been refurbished with a Barclays-branded interior. Over the next few months, we will continue to rollout the rebranding programme to our offices and branches throughout the country. Al marketing materials will be rebranded accordingly.