Ruble balances continue declining

At the beginning of business today, ruble balances at commercial bank correspondent accounts went down considerably again. Across Russia, this decrease was RUR6.2bn (about $194.610m); in Moscow, ruble balances sagged by RUR6.7bn (about $210.30m). The drop took place for the second day in a row. Over this period, the amount of resources at ruble correspondent accounts tumbled by over RUR10bn (about $313.88m) throughout the country and by over RUR8bn (about $251.10m) in the Russian capital. This morning, ruble balances at commercial bank correspondent accounts were about RUR84bn (about $2.64bn) across Russia and RUR45bn (about $1.41bn) in the Moscow region. The national figure has been the lowest since November 16; the Moscow level has been minimal since October 29, which was almost a month and a half ago. This triggered an increase in ruble credit rates. As of now, they have exceeded the level of Monday, December 9, almost twice and amount to about 5 percent.