OREANDA-NEWS. December 15, 2011. Center-invest Bank is Russia’s first regional bank to accede to the Rules of Federal Mandated Organisation OJSC UEC (United Payment Service System “Universal Payment Card”). Center-invest Bank will participate as an issuer and acquirer bank for the universal e-cards, reported the press-centre of Center-Invest Bank.

With the accession of another bank to the UEC system, further progress is made towards establishing the necessary infrastructure for the e-cards to be used throughout the whole of Russia. As noted by UEC Vice-President, Aleksandr Shestakov, “Center-invest Bank is UEC’s first, and, so far, only, banking partner in southern Russia.”

Drawing on international best practice, Center-invest Bank offers its customers the very latest bank card services, which it is able to do because it has its own processing centre in southern Russia.

Center-invest Bank already has experience of successfully introducing universal cards based on chip technologies. Together with the Rostov Region local government, the bank has been running the “Cards of the Rostov Region Resident” project, which has issued more than 11,500 cards to date.

The universal e-card is a unified federal standard. It will replace all the social cards issued locally by the constituent members of the Russian Federation. It will also replace many other documents, for example, mandatory medical insurance policies, student cards, and travel documents.

The universal e-card can also be used like an ordinary bank card to pay for goods and services in shops and anywhere else that accepts card payments.

Center-invest Bank’s sustainable banking model focuses not on instantaneous gains, but on long-term profits in the interests of its shareholders, customers and partners.

Center-invest Bank
The bank was established in 1992 by the directors of the first privatised companies in southern Russia and a team of higher education lecturers from Rostov-on-Don. Today, Center-invest Bank is southern Russia’s leading regional bank. It accounts for more than 70% of the Don region banks’ total assets, loans and deposits, and more than one third of their total capital.

Center-invest Bank’s mission is to provide the local population and businesses in southern Russia with banking services based on international standards and modern banking technologies.