Central Bank discovered a record hole in the currency balance of the banking system

The Russian banking system ended 2020 with a “hole” in the currency balance. As of January 1, banks' liabilities in foreign currency exceeded foreign currency assets by $ 8.5 billion, follows from data published by the Central Bank of the Russian Federation (.xls). The gap fixed by the regulator is a record for 12 years of available statistics. It exceeds the indicators of the end of July and August 2008, when, against the background of the start of the global financial crisis, banks lacked $ 6.2 billion and $ 7.1 billion to cover all foreign exchange liabilities. The "hole" in the dollar balance sheets of banks arose against the backdrop of a sharp surge in interest in foreign exchange among businesses and individuals. In November and December, corporations replenished foreign currency accounts for $ 16.2 billion, having accumulated the maximum amount since April 2018 - $ 159.1 billion. Citizens, meanwhile, got involved in buying up foreign currency and carried $ 400 million in foreign currency deposits and $ 4.2 billion in current accounts, returning to banks almost all the dollars and euros that were withdrawn in the spring. Izvestia english Banks' total liabilities to foreign currency clients jumped $ 22.4 billion in two months in two months. At the same time, there was no comparable increase in foreign currency assets. They added only $ 10.9 billion to $ 311.5 billion on January 1. Liquid foreign exchange assets - that is, those that can be quickly converted into cash to cover liabilities to customers - have completely diminished. In December, their volume decreased by 6% - from $ 53.9 billion to $ 46.7 billion. Banks withdrew currency from foreign correspondent accounts, returning them "to normal levels after a sharp increase in November," writes the Central Bank in the report "On the development of the banking sector." Russian banks find it difficult to park client currency. "Due to the tight regulation of the Russian, they cannot offer competitive conditions for foreign currency lending," said Yegor Susin, head of the strategy development center at Gazprombank. In November-December, when the population and business woke up interest in foreign exchange savings, banks issued $ 7.6 billion in foreign currency loans, of which only $ 4.6 billion went to the real sector of the economy, and the rest went to financial institutions. “The resulting shortage of foreign exchange liquidity in the banking sector does not allow compensating, as it was before, the export of capital by the corporate sector,” said Denis Poryvai, an analyst at Raiffesenbank. This, along with the threat of sanctions and an unfavorable investment climate, increases the pressure on the ruble, he said. According to the Central Bank, last year the net capital outflow from the Russian Federation doubled and amounted to $ 47.8 billion.