As of September 1, 2020, the volume of investments of Russian credit institutions in precious metals reached 121 tons in terms of gold. This is an all-time high during the entire period of disclosure of the statistics of the Russian Central Bank. In August, the price of gold exceeded $2,000 per ounce.
In August, Russian banks increased their investments in precious metals by 117.95 billion rubles, a statistics report from the Bank of Russia said. As of September 1, investment in this asset totalled 567.86 billion rubles. In terms of gold, the reserves of Russian banks updated their historical record: at the reporting date, they amounted to 121 tons, which is 10.9% higher than the maximum reached in October 2019 (109.1 tons).
In August, Russian banks increased their reserves of precious metals by 23.3 tons in terms of gold. Russia's largest state-owned bank Sberbank increased its gold reserves in August by 16.9%, or 3.1 tons, but Sberbank is so far the only Russian bank that published a report on September 1. In addition to Sberbank, VTB, Otkritie, Gazprombank and Sovcombank are now in the top 5 of largest gold investors.
Gold prices soared in the summer of 2020: at the end of July, the price of futures exceeded $1,941.9 per troy ounce - the largest since 2011. In early August, the price of gold on some trading days exceeded $ 2,000 per ounce, but the price trend changed later during the month, and gold futures for August fell to $1,871.6.