Russian citizens have pulled a total of 52.6 billion rubles ($1.3 billion) from ruble deposit accounts from banks in September as the Russian currency plunged alongside oil prices amid Western sanctions over the crisis in the Ukraine, Russia’s business daily Vedomosti reported on Tuesday, citing data from Russia’s Central Bank.
Fitch said, however, based on calculations that account for the devaluation in the ruble, Russia’s banking system has lost a total of 200 billion rubles ($4.9 billion) in personal deposits in September, according to Vedomosti.
Western sanctions placed on Russia over the Ukraine crisis have put additional pressure on the beaten down ruble and have prevented major state-run firms from rolling over billions of dollars in debt to foreign banks. As a result, major Russian firms are now being forced to purchase hard currency in order to pay off their debts.
The Moscow Times says: “While the current situation is still far from the crisis of 1998, if Russians were to panic and pull all their money out of the system, as they did then, their actions would weigh heavily on the ruble and the Central Bank’s reserves.”
In Russia, household savings in bank accounts total around 1.6 trillion rubles ($40 billion), according to Sergei Pukhov, an economist at the Higher School of Economics, the Moscow Times Says.
Sources: Moscow Times, Vedomosti
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