OREANDA-NEWS. November 8, 2012. The Bank’s contribution to the conference was to host a master class by Leonid Bugaev for the city’s entrepreneur community on maximizing business performance and achieving target figures

Business owners, bank personnel and government officials met up at the Vidgof Hotel to discuss ways and means of enhancing SME activities in Chelyabinsk. In addition to round tables and master classes, at the conference the results of the regional round of a competition to find Russia’s best entrepreneurs were announced, and an update given on municipalities currently ranking highest for local business development.

The organizers of the Business Success 2012 conference and competition are the All-Russian Non-Governmental Organization of Medium and Small Business (OPORA Russia), and the OPORA-Credit media holding, supported by Russia’s Ministry for Economic Development. Uniastrum was represented at the conference by Evgeny Totikov, head of the Corporate and SME Development Division, and by Evgeny Repin, manager of the Bank’s Chelyabinsk branch. Speaking at a round table on small business financing in the Chelyabinsk region, Evgeny Totikov gave an overview of current trends in SME funding in Russia and abroad, drawing particularly on Uniastrum’s experience in this area.

Uniastrum is one of Russia’s Top-10 banks by SME credit portfolio value and works actively with small business in all areas under its coverage. The SB credit portfolio of the Bank’s Chelyabinsk branch expanded 13.5% year-on-year, while its SB client count rose 20%.

“Our work with the small business community is based first and foremost on building profitable and durable relationships,” says Evgeny Repin, manager of Uniastrum’s Chelyabinsk branch. “We not only provide entrepreneurs with instant business development solutions, but also help them to structure their projects effectively in order to derive maximum benefit from their loans.”