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amount of 0.5% per month of the amount exceeding the limit of $3000 for the mass segment and $25,000 for premium clients. Sberbank, VTB, Alfa-Bank, Gazprombank and Rosselkhozbank did not respond to The Bell's requests for comment on their plans.
In addition to these banks, Citibank, Promsvyazbank, Bank St. Petersburg, Uralsib and RNKB are already charging fees for storing currency, Frank RG analysts found out. Taking into account Tinkoff and Rosbank, this is already more than a third of the top 20 Russian credit institutions.
The imposition of EU sanctions against the National Settlement Depository (NSD), through which all settlements on the securities market go through, clearly showed how sanctions risks could hit banks. Among other things, as a result of the sanctions, between €4.5bn and €7bn of funds from Russian banks were frozen in NSD accounts, Frank Media found out today.
The Central Bank will help the process along by allowing banks to paynegative real interest rates and noted that the legalization of negative rates on foreign currency deposits in Russia would help speed up devaluation. Now negative rates are simply not provided for by law. In the near future, the State Duma may change this and introduce negative rates on foreign currency deposits for legal entities. No changes are planned for individuals, but some banks, for example, the same Tinkoff, simply do not offer such a product as a foreign currency deposit.
According to the Finuslugi project of the Moscow Exchange, now the average rates on deposits in dollars are 0.48-0.71% depending on the term, in euros - 0.31-0.6% per annum. But while negative rates are prohibited in Russia, this is at least not a minus.
The Russians have few alternatives where to transfer the currency - real estate, gold or conversion into rubles, says Igor Alutin, manager of the Finuslugi project. He believes that the most reliable instrument with a guaranteed return is ruble deposits. In some banks, you can still find rates of 10-11% per annum.
The currency can be transferred to an account abroad, adds Natalya Smirnova, but it is important to clarify what conditions are there: there can also be negative rates on euro accounts abroad, Smirnova emphasizes. Money can also be withdrawn to a foreign brokerage account and invested there, but here you need to choose the right broker, given that in some countries investors with a Russian passport “may be shown to the door.”
120 RUSSIA Country Report October 2020 www.intellinews.com