Deputy Chairman of the Russian Central Bank noted on September 2, 2022, that 40% of Russian “systemically important banks”, which are the largest in the country and have higher capital adequacy requirements, disclosed their losses in the first half of this year.
Source: Deputy Chairman of the Russian Central Bank Dmytro Tulin
Russian banks lost 1.5 trillion rubles [Russian currency – ed.], or 25 billion dollars, in the first half of 2022 as a result of sanctions imposed by western countries against the Russian Federation due to its invasion of Ukraine.
Western sanctions were aimed at blocking the assets of Russian banks, prohibiting some of them from trading in dollars, euros and other convertible currencies, etc.
“Sanctions made it more problematic for Russian banks to operate in foreign currencies, even if the banks themselves were not affected by the sanctions. Banks in the West either closed the correspondent accounts of Russian creditors or spend weeks and months on checks, which delays payments.”
As a result, according to Tulin, “we can say that the economic essence of currency accounts has changed — they have turned into ruble accounts tied to the exchange rate.”
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