The murder in mid-September of Victor Ternyak, the general director of the A/O European Asian Company, has put on ice plans for a city wide electronic credit card system in Ekaterinburg in the Urals. Ternyak was assassinated in his car by a lone gunman, and his bodyguard was left in a critical condition. Europe-Asia-Credit of Ekaterinburg was set up at the beginning of August and planned to issue three types of debit and credit cards and to organise the installation of terminals in alllarge stores of the city. The parent company A/O European-Asian was to develop the communication links, Uralkombank of Ekaterinburg was to run banking operations in combination with the Ekaterinburg insurance company Ostin – and Victor Ternyak was central to the organisation of the plan. Staff at A/O European-Asian say that without him, the whole scheme is likely to collapse.
