Director of the Hapoalim Representative Office in Russia, Mark Oigman, visited the Moscow office of the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress, where he met with the EAJC Secretary General, professor Michael Chlenov.

The EAJC Secretary General spoke to the guest about the Congress’s international structure and its place in the global Jewish community. In particular, he noted that one of the priority tasks in the diverse activities of the EAJC is the strengthening of solidarity between the Jewish diaspora and the Jewish state.

Thr 35-year-old banker, in return, spoke about the main tasks of the representative office, and noted that he isn’t representing the Tel-Aviv bank, but the Swiss division of Hapoalim. The bank has been working with Russian clients, both private and corporate, since the 1990s. In 2006 the bank received a license to create a representative office, and the opening ceremony in Moscow took place two months ago. Oigman underscored that being the first “official” Israeli banker in Russia is a great honor for him.

When he was 11, Mark Oigman and his family repatriated from Chisinau and made their home in Netanya. So working in Russia is easier for him not only because of his professional skills, but because his family gave him knowledge of Russian and Russia’s cultural pecularities. The banker said that his representative office uses a conservative strategy aimed at having a stable income without excess risks and stressed that Hapoalim clients suffered much less than clients of other banks during the 2008 financial crisis.

He added that the bank is involved in charity and hopes for constructive collaborations with Jewish organizations. “We are aimed at Jewish depositors, their friends and partners. We hope that our client base will successfully grow wider, including through contacts with the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress,” Mark Oigman noted finally.

Michael Chlenov summarized the meeting: “The diplomatic, trade and economic, and now the financial and credit presence of Israel in Russia gives Russian Jews cause for an optimistic outlook to the consecutive rapprochement of our countries,” said Michael Chlenov while summarizing the meeting.