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About Us

The Joint-Stock Commercial Bank FORUM is a commercial bank headquarted in  Kyiv, Ukraine offering a range of banking services through a network of branches and operational offices. FORUM Bank is one of the largest banks of  Ukraine.

Since its foundation in 1994 FORUM Bank proved to be a powerful financial and credit institution, a reliable and stable partner that is consistent with the most contemporary standards of service, enjoying full confidence of its clients in Ukraine and abroad.

Shareholders

The majority shareholder of FORUM Bank is the International Germany-based banking group:

• Commerzbank AG - 60% + 1 share

In November 2005, the shareholders of FORUM Bank completed a secondary private placement of existing shares among foreign investors of approximately 9.4 per cent. of the issued share capital of the Bank. This 9.4 per cent. shareholding was distributed among institutional funds in  Western Europe. The shares were placed in the form of Global Depositary Receipts which were registered on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange in early November 2005.

Key Figures as at 1 July 2008:

Licences

In  Ukraine, banks interact most often with the following government and regulatory bodies:

• The National Bank of  Ukraine;
• The State Securities and Stock Markets Commission;
• The tax authorities.

In addition to normal regulatory interactions, FORUM Bank has bid for and won tenders to provide services in respect of various state-supported programmes, including:

• Pension payments — since 2001, FORUM has been approved by the State Pension Fund and the Ministry of Labour and Social Policy to make pension and social welfare payments (and does so in over 60 Ukrainian cities and towns);
• Mortgage financing - FORUM Bank works with funds which operate state-sponsored mortgage financing — the Fund for Construction of Housing for Young People and the State Mortgage Institution;
• SME lending — FORUM participates in a programme for financing SMEs, sponsored by the German-Ukrainian Fund, where funds are distributed through the NBU;
• Payroll services — in 2005 FORUM Bank won a tender to work with the Ministry of Finance in developing a package of payroll and related services to be provided to state-owned companies.

FORUM’s banking licence permits it to perform all banking operations contemplated within the Ukrainian legal framework. FORUM Bank also holds licences to carry out security issuance, distribution, trading and broking activities on the Ukrainian stock market; and is licenced to deal in precious metals.

Overview

FORUM’s principal activities are corporate banking and individual (retail) banking. We offer banking services to small and medium-sized enterprises («SMEs») as part of our corporate banking business.

Corporate banking, in combination with SME lending, has traditionally been the main focus of our business. The corporate banking business of FORUM Bank includes corporate lending (including long-term loans to SMEs and project finance), deposit taking, micro-financing programmes in association with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (the «EBRD») and the German-Ukrainian Fund (the «GUF»), trade finance, brokerage, arrangement and underwriting services for corporate bond issues, issuance of promissory notes and investment project management and advisory services.

As part of its corporate lending business to SMEs, which consists of only long-term loans to SMEs, FORUM participates in programmes funded by the EBRD and the GUF.

FORUM retail banking activities are primarily deposit taking, cash settlement, retail lending, services relating to pension accounts and foreign currency exchange transactions. We offer a range of bank card products to its retail customers, including debit and VISA and MasterCard credit cards. FORUM Bank offers internet-banking services and the ability to access funds through both its own and a shared network of ATMs.

On 28 July 2006, Moody’s assigned the following ratings to the JSC Bank Forum: B2 long term local currency deposit rating (with a positive outlook); a short-term local currency rating of Not Prime and a long-term national scale rating of A1.ua. On 1 September 2006, Fitch assigned to FORUM Bank an Issuer Default rating of B- with a Stable Outlook, a Short-term rating of B, a Support rating of 5 and an Individual rating of D/E.

On 20 November 2006, Moody's Investors Service has changed the outlook on the B2 long-term foreign currency deposit rating of FORUM Bank to positive.

Distribution network

FORUM Bank offers its services via a network of branches and smaller outlets extending throughout Ukraine. The Bank’s branches and outlets (operational offices) offer a wide range of banking services including lending, documentary transactions, securities operations, foreign currency transactions, settlement and payment transactions and international payment cards operations.

Branches offer the full range of the Bank’s services to FORUM retail and corporate customers. Each branch has its own lending limits and decision making bodies which are customarily established within a year of establishment of the relevant branch. Each of the FORUM Bank’s outlets are smaller and may not offer the full range of the Bank’s services. All outlets offer current and deposit customer accounts and foreign exchange. However, only the larger outlets offer loan facilities, with limits set by the relevant branch or the Bank’s head office.

The Bank is expanding its network in the most populated and economically developed cities and regions of  Ukraine (including Kyiv, Donetsk, Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Lviv, Odesa, Zaporizhzhia, Luhansk, the Mykolayiv region, the Crimea and other industrial centres).

As at 5 March 2007, FORUM network consisted of 28 branches and 170 outlets. As at 5 March 2007 FORUM Bank was in the process of registering an additional one new branch and 3 new operational offices.