Center-invest Bank's Board of Directors sets itself the objective of integrating the European and southern Russian economies and raising the standard of living in southern Russia.
On 28 November a meeting of shareholders of Center-invest Bank approved the following composition of the Board of Directors:
- Vasily Vysokov: Chairman of the Board of Directors, Chairman of the Strategic Planning Committee (Doctor of Economics, Professor)
- Tatiana Vysokova: Chairman of the Audit and Compliance Committee (Ph.D in Economics, Reader)
- Vladimir Zolotarev: Chairman of the Appointments and Remunerations Committee (Doctor of Economics, Professor)
- Ernst Welteke: Independent Director (Former President of Deutsche Bundesbank)
- Georgy Orlov (EBRD, Director of the Financial Institutions Department for Russia)
- Andreas Zeisler: Doctor of Economics (German Investment and Development Company (DEG), First Vice President, Head of Financial Institutions)
- Andreas Klingen (Erste Group, Chairman for Strategic Group Development).
Alexander Losev (Executive Director of LLC Kadri) was appointed Advisor to the Chairman of the Board of Directors.
This planned and agreed alteration to the Board of Directors was carried out to support the implementation of programmes to establish a common central and eastern European financial space, on the basis of best international practice.
Mr Klingen's experience in developing the strategy of Erste Group, with more than 16 million clients one of the largest banks in Central and Eastern Europe, will enable Center-invest's Executive Board to improve the bank's position in the global financial market.
Erste Group (formerly Erste Bank) was founded by Viennese merchants in 1819 as the first Austrian savings bank to provide services to the poorest sectors of society in the Austrian empire. Today the bank has 16 million customers and 3000 branches in 8 countries (Austria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania, Hungary, Croatia, Serbia and Ukraine).
The advantages of the Erste Group’s business model are that it focuses on bringing the standard of living in Central and Eastern Europe up to the overall European standard, and it is concerned with the economic growth prospects of these regions. Center-invest Bank has a very similar business model: providing banking services that meet international standards for the general public and the business community of southern Russia.
Combining the 200 years' experience of the largest savings bank in Central and Eastern Europe with Center-invest's effective management of regional risks in Russia's Southern Federal District will boost the integration of the European and southern Russian economies and stimulate an improvement in the standard of living in southern Russia.
In October-November of this year, ten members of Center-invest staff had short-term secondments in Erste Group divisions in Vienna and Prague, during which they exchanged experience of working with retail customers and SMEs, risk management and marketing. The Board has since accepted recommendations based on this exchange of experience. By implementing these recommendations, Center-invest Bank will further improve its corporate governance, its management of business processes and human resources, its product and functional structure, and its social responsibility. Center-invest will then be well placed to help shape the new global banking market.
In 2008 Erste Bank provided Center-invest Bank with a USD 15m bilateral loan and it was also an IMLA of a USD60m syndicated loan to Center-invest.