OREANDA-NEWS. October 5, 2011. National Settlement Depository (NSD), Russia's only settlement depository servicing the full range of debt and equity securities of Russian issuers, has introduced a new type of section of account ("DR provided by the Bank of Russia in accordance with depository receipts program") which accumulates a client's basic asset in accordance with depository receipts program and has a special tariff plan. A participant shall not pay a commission for custody of securities in this section, but pays an additional fee for conducting of operations with securities. The new section is to be open starting 12 September.

ZAO Citibank is the first company in Russian market which passed its securities submitted for depository receipts program to NSD for custody.

Eddie Astanin, Chairman of the Executive Board, NSD, said: "We assume that a step made by ZAO Citibank means recognition of a high level of reliability of NSD as a depository. This is a very important event, given that ZAO Citibank is a part of Citi Group, one of the leading international financial companies providing custodial services to the investors all over the world, and a member of the Association of Global Custodians."

Alexei Fedotov, Director, Securities and Funds Service Head, Russia & CIS, ZAO Citibank, added: "Citibank, following a strategy of commitment to the Russian market, is consistently developing new products and services provided to investors and securities issuers in Russia. A program of depository receipts is one of these products. The program's infrastructure comprises few important elements; one of them is a selection of a place for local securities' safekeeping. From the early beginning we did not doubt that the local shares for the program should have been kept with NSD but not in the shareholder register as before. We appreciate NSD's flexibility and client oriented approach, and we hope that the steps made by Citi and NSD will contribute to formation of a unified central depository in Russia."

Custody of securities for depository receipts program with NSD in the new section will allow ZAO Citibank:
To speed up issuance and cancellation of depository receipts significantly
To combine a low cost of securities custody in the register of shareholders and a high quality of securities servicing by the depository.