Fall in balances of correspondent accounts aggravates ruble deficit

The balances of correspondent accounts at Russian commercial banks wentdown this morning. They decreased by 2.6bn rubles (about $82m) in Russiaand 2bn rubles (about $63m) in the Moscow region.A fall in the balances of correspondent accounts continued for the secondday in a row. Over the past two days, the balances at correspondentaccounts dropped 6.4bn rubles ($203m) to less than 71bn rubles ($2.25bn) inRussia and 3.3bn rubles ($105m) to a little more than 38bn rubles ($1.2bn)in Moscow. These figures, which were the lowest over the past week, haveaggravated the ruble deficit on the Russian currency market. This, in turn,resulted in a noticeable fall in the dollar exchange rate at this morning'strading session as well as on the interbank market..