A NEW FINANCIAL HUB…

Current and potential creditors should listen carefully to Aleksandr Pochinok, a Duma specialist on bank regulation. Mr. Pochinok, arguing for stronger control over correspondent banking, said that Russian banks have 6,600 offshore accounts, of which about 6,000 are on the island of Nauru in the Pacific. About US$10 billion flows monthly through the Nauru accounts, he told Ekho Moskvy radio. Perhaps some tighter control over these operations would be a good idea, he suggested.