A. Makhonin / Vedomosti

In March, the volume of client funds in Bank Rossiya decreased by 34.5 billion rubles, according to its balance sheet as of April 1, published on the Central Bank website. Of these, 27.7 billion were withdrawn from deposits in Yuri Kovalchuk's bank by companies, their volume decreased by 14.8% to 159.3 billion rubles. Another 5.7 billion rubles were withdrawn by companies from current accounts. A little more than 1 billion rubles were withdrawn from Rossiya by depositors, and half of this amount was in foreign currency, according to the bank's reporting.

It supported its liquidity by selling securities - the volume of bonds decreased by 17.2 billion rubles to 74.9 billion, according to an analyst at one of the global investment banks.

Rossiya compensated for part of the outflow of funds with loans from the Central Bank. Their volume more than doubled in March and reached 22.7 billion rubles. The Central Bank declared its readiness to support Rossiya, although the bank itself assured that it did not need financial support. Rossiya's financial indicators may worsen due to sanctions, S&P wrote, but the bank will be able to count on support from the Central Bank.

The bank's loan portfolio has remained virtually unchanged: on March 1, it was 266.4 billion rubles, and on April 1, it was 266.9 billion. This does not mean that the bank has curtailed lending: there is turnover on the accounts.

An analyst at a global investment bank estimates the outflow of money from Rossiya at approximately 10.7% of client funds: “This is not yet a stress scenario, but it is already unpleasant.” He calls an outflow of 20% a stress scenario.

At the end of March, Bank Rossiya and its largest co-owner Kovalchuk were among those against whom the US imposed sanctions. The Visa and MasterCard payment systems blocked transactions on the bank's cards. As a result, Rossiya refused to work with foreign banks and currencies, declaring the ruble its only unit of account.

Immediately after the introduction of sanctions, the bank received support from President Vladimir Putin, who opened an account there a few days later, to which his salary would be transferred.

The bank was preparing for the fact that “half of the bank would simply be taken out,” Kovalchuk said in an interview with the Rossiya 1 TV channel in late March, but after the news that Putin was opening an account at Rossiya, the bank “was flooded with people” who also came to open accounts. At the same time, Rossiya asked its corporate clients to refrain from making currency payments to its accounts until further notice, according to a statement on the bank’s website.

It was not possible to obtain comments from a representative of "Russia" yesterday evening.

Sanctions are stronger than Putin