Russians were afraid of sanctions: clients of state banks withdrew more than $6 billion from foreign currency deposits

In August, clients of state banks, due to fear of new sanctions, withdrew more than $5 billion from foreign currency accounts, according to a review by Fitch. Moreover, in Sberbank, which in August suffered more than others from the departure of foreign currency depositors, the outflow continued in September: private depositors alone took almost $1 billion, Frank RG analysts note. Reuters estimates the September outflow from foreign currency deposits of individuals at Sberbank at almost $2 billion.

Details

• At the end of August, corporate and private depositors withdrew $5.1 billion from Russian state banks, according to Fitch’s monthly review of the banking system (available to The Bell). Sberbank ($2.9 billion, or 3.6% of customer funds in foreign currency), VTB ($2.6 billion, or 5.6% of the total), Gazprombank ($1.1 billion, or 5.2% of the total).
• Sberbank clients continued to withdraw foreign currency from deposits in September, Frank RG analysts write . According to their estimates, over the past month the state bank lost $0.9 billion. In August, the outflow of currency from the accounts of private depositors of Sberbank was estimated at $1.2 billion. At the same time, Reuters analysts estimated the September outflow of currency from Sberbank at 130 billion rubles, or almost $2 billion. And according to Sberbank’s RAS reporting for September, balances in individuals’ accounts decreased to 12.19 trillion rubles from 12.40 trillion rubles in August.
• Foreign banks benefited from this situation - the influx of foreign currency deposits in August amounted to $1.4 billion. The largest increase in such deposits was recorded by Rosbank ($0.3 billion, or 10.6% of customer funds in foreign currency) and Raiffeisenbank ($0. 6 billion, or 11.9% of the total).
• The currency outflow may be due to concerns about new sanctions against Russian state-owned banks, Fitch writes. At the same time, analysts note that some foreign currency deposits could be converted into rubles.

Context

• Earlier, Bloomberg wrote that at the end of August, private depositors withdrew $1.5 billion from their foreign currency accounts from all Russian banks. The largest outflow occurred at Sberbank - $1.2 billion. Thus, the volume of foreign currency on deposits of the state bank fell to a three-year minimum.
• Raiffeisenbank analysts also gave their assessment of the volume of outflow of foreign currency capital. They reported that in anticipation of sanctions that could affect the Russian banking sector, the largest outflow of foreign currency capital faced the largest state banks - Sberbank, VTB, Gazprombank. In total, individuals withdrew $2 billion from them.
• Some banks have already increased rates on foreign currency deposits. At the end of September, Sberbank increased its rates on some dollar deposits - the maximum rate increased from 1.35 to 2% per annum, subject to opening a dollar deposit online and depositing an amount of $20 thousand or more (“Save” deposit). This week, VTB increased rates - now the maximum rate on a dollar deposit of the Profitable Privilege deposit is 3.4% per annum. Gazprombank opened a new deposit “Foreign currency income” with a rate of 2.8%, this is by 0.75 percentage points. above the previous maximum dollar yield.

“There is nothing dramatic in this situation,” says Frank RG CEO Yuri Gribanov. “There is an outflow, it’s unpleasant, but 3-5% does not have any significant impact on the stability of state-owned banks.” State banks do not yet have serious problems with funding, the expert is sure. But clients of Russian banks can benefit from the outflow of deposits. Foreign exchange rates will rise until the situation with possible sanctions against Russian state banks becomes clear,

Liana Faizova