Banks experiencing problems with ruble liquidity

Balances of correspondent accounts at Russian commercial banks gainedconsiderably at the beginning of business today. This increase amounted tosome 13bn rubles (about $412m) throughout the country and to 11bn rubles(about $348m) at commercial banks in the Moscow region. This advance hasbeen the largest since August 1, i.e. for nearly a month. As a result thebalance of correspondent accounts at Russian commercial banks amounted to93.774 billion rubles (about $2.97bn) as of the beginning of business onAugust 30. The balance of the correspondent accounts at the banks in theMoscow region reached 58.012 billion rubles (about $1.84bn). These figureshave been the highest over the past two months, since July 2. Nevertheless,commercial banks have experienced serious problems with ruble liquidity inthe first half of the day. Evidence of this fact is high ruble creditrates. The one-day ruble credit rate is from nine to twelve percentcurrently. Taking into account the coming two days off, July 31 andSeptember 1, the overnight credit is in fact 27 percent to 36 percent,experts of a commercial bank said in an interview withRosBusinessConsulting..