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Toyota Hauls in Its Bank
Toyota Kreditbank, the financial division of the Japanese automaking giant, has completed preparations to receive a Russian banking license. The company intends to require all Toyota dealers in the country to work exclusively with the Japanese company's subsidiary bank. Analysts estimate that will represent a loss of $1 billion in auto crediting for Russian banks. A Toyota Kreditbank office opens today on Balchug St. in Moscow and plans are for it to issue its first credits at the beginning of the new year.
Toyota Motor Corp. has thus become the first automaker to open its own bank in Russia. A source at the bank said that it will provide credit for purchases of Toyota and Lexus automobiles, credit official company dealers and service the plant that is being built in St. Petersburg to produce parts for its cars.
According to the European Business Club, 86,000 Toyotas were sold in Russia in the first 11 months of the year. Independent expert Valery Tarakanov estimated that about 40 percent of those cars were sold on credit. Prices for Toyota vehicles will fall after the Toyota assembly plant in St. Petersburg opens next year, which will increase the volume of credit the Japanese bank will issue.
Russian bankers were not concerned about this development on the market. “Loss from a possible halt to cooperation with Toyota will be compensated for with other credit programs for the public,” Alexey Aksenov, general manager for retail products and services at MMB, commented. Trust Bank's managing retail director Elena Rechkalova observed in a similar tone that the Japanese bank will have to “set up a conveyor of autocredit sales, while Russian banks have been working successfully in that sector for several years.”
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Dec. 18, 2006
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