The world's largest fast-transfers operator, Western Union, has started ruble transactions in Russia aiming to expand its business here, company officials said Tuesday.


Since the U.S.-based company opened up in Russia four years ago, its local turnover has grown to millions of dollars from about $40,000 at the beginning, but its services had been conducted only in dollars.


"About 80 percent of people who got in touch with us said they wanted to transfer rubles," said John Skinner, Western Union's vice president for Eastern Europe.


According to the company's press release, rubles are now accepted in all of its more than 100 agencies throughout Russia and in some former Soviet republics.


The opportunity to pick up money at any distance within minutes after it was deposited at an agency -- the principal feature of Western Union's service -- is unparalleled in Russia where banks and the telegraph system take days and weeks to deliver a sum.


Western Union also does not require a client to open an account, contrary to most banks' condition for money transactions.


"We do not limit our services only to cities where you can expect a large number of customers," Sergey Kochergin, Western Union's operations manager in Russia, said. "We go to places where we are most needed," he said citing the example of the Georgian capital Tbilisi.


Kochetkov said most of the company's clients in Russia have been tourists, foreign students and businessmen, as well as Russian emigr?s who transfer money to Russia to support their relatives.


The company's network covers 10 cities in Russia and has spread to the former members of the Soviet Union, including Belarus, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Ukraine and the three Baltic States.


But transfers between the ex-Soviet republics can only be conducted in dollars, the spokesmen said.


The average sum of a transfer is estimated at around $1,000, Kochergin said.


Dmitry Levin, vice-president of the bank Mezhekonombank, which houses some of the Western Union agencies in Moscow, praised the service as a tool to unite different banks in one system, as well as the means to help banks address the individual.


According to Kochergin's statistics, every fifth Western Union client ends up with an account at the bank where an agency is situated.