it probably comes down to psychology more than anything else. i have grown to despise the degradation of Raiffeisen, particularly after its merger. the branches are overcrowded, the one on smolenskay is simply dirty, and the bank no longer feels very western.
nothing seems to work. i have been waiting for 8 weeks for a credit card refund. they pay 4% on hard currency accounts (there is a blended term/call deposit). why don't I leave? b/c I was here in '98. I remember the Dialog Bank, that was too Western to fail, too... stable and well managed, even USAID kept their money there (they lost it, but then they did that in a LOT of places). basically, while I don't much care for Raiffeisen, I believe that they won't lose my money. you can do MUCH better for interest rates, some RF banks offer as much as 12% on ruble accounts, the question is... do you trust them? many of my friends went to MBRD (the Systema Bank), I don't think they are crazy to do so. I just don't trust [fill name of RF bank here]. Part of it is being a corporate finance lawyer, so you see to what extent many are houses of cards. For example, why would Sberbank start dumping its reserves onto the stock market, on the same day that VTB announced it is gonna share 1/2 its profits. Does that mean that stock market and therefore banks are slowly collapsing (credit crisis, IPO crisis, etc.) or just as so many things in russia are - a coincidence. PS. for the love of Allah, please, please, please don't repaste the entire message when responding to something, there are bits and pieces of interest but they are virtually impossible to find when a whole string gets re-cut-pasted. _______________________________________________ Expat mailing list [email protected] http://www.lists.ru/mailman/listinfo/expat http://www.expat.ru/forum/
