OREANDA-NEWS. April 30, 2008. Yekaterinburg hosted the ceremony of the 10 000th Credit Card issued by Citibank in the Ural Federal Region. The winner is Zueva Julia, the holder of the Citibank Miles & More card, reported the press-centre of Citibank.

The Miles & More Credit Card by Citibank offers such benefits as a grace period and a revolving credit line of up to RUR 600,000, the card allows to earn one award mile for every RUR 30 spent on the card and to get from 3,000 to 5,000 award miles as a welcome bonus after the first purchase made with the card. The award miles can be used for upgrades to a higher-class of travel or for booking flight award tickets, hotel reservations and car rentals or to make purchases, when traveling to over 800 destinations with Lufthansa or its airline partners.

Selim Ergoz, Vice-president, Head of Citibank Credit Cards in Russia together with Michael Berner, Vice-president, Head of business and new products development and Igor Lisitsin, Head of Ural branch of Citibank awarded Ms. Zueva with a certificate for the tickets for MOSCOW CHAMPIONS LEAGUE FINAL.

"Today Citibank serves over half a million retail customers and cardholders all over Russia. The benchmark of 10,000 that we reached in Ekaterinburg proves to be an important indicator of the development of the credit card market in Russia's major cities. Ekaterinburg is a good example to that," said Selim Ergoz.

George Denisenko, Head of Credit Card Portfolio at ZAO Citibank, also noted: "Credit cards remain a priority product for Citibank all over the world. We work day by day to increase the loyalty of our customers by offering them new opportunities that will help make their life more comfortable."

Citibank was the first bank in Russia and in Ekaterinburg in particular, to introduce a grace period of up to 50 days, as well as to launch the cash-back credit card that enables its holder to get back 1% off the total amount of every purchase on their account.

The majority of holders and active users of Citibank credit cards in Ekaterinburg is 25-40 years old. Of note is that Citibank Miles&More co-brand is more popular among men. While women prefer cash-back cards. According to Citibank research, Clothes, Tourism, Department Stores, Electronics&technicals and Supermarkets are among leading spending categories. This trend is also proved by Ekaterinburg data: currently electronics supermarkets and department stores are among the most popular merchants among Ekaterinburg credit card owners (both in number of transactions and in total spend). It looks as if electronics is not only important part of Russians spending, but is and will remain one of the most favorable gifts for any occurrences.

Ural branch of Citibank in Russia was inaugurated in March 2007 and became the first Ekaterinburg based bank, offering credit card in point of sales, located directly in trade centers and supermarkets. It also pioneered in a broad range of discounts and bonuses program for card owners, offered by Citibank partnering companies. Ural branch is now leading by multiple criteria among Citibank branches, opened during the last year. Ekaterinburg is a high potential city in Ural region, where Citibank already has three branches, points of sales in major trade centres, 8 ATMs with standard cash-in functions and 24H on-line utility bill payments services.