Ruble credits remain low despite drop in balances

Balances of correspondent accounts at Russian commercial banks became noticeably lower at the beginning of business today. This decrease amounted to 16.8bn rubles ($527m) at banks in the Moscow region and to 17.6bn rubles ($552m) throughout Russia. This has been the most considerable drop since January 5. As a result the balance of correspondent accounts at Russian commercial banks amounted to 92.771 billion rubles (about $2.91bn) and in the Moscow region it reached 55.211 billion rubles (about $1.73bn). These figures have been the lowest since December 10, 2002.

Nevertheless, this sharp decrease in balances did not lead to a worsening of the situation with ruble liquidity and the emergence of ruble deficit on the market in the first half of the day. Evidence of a lack of ruble deficit is the minimal level of one-day ruble credit rates that have been 3-3.5 percent.