Balances at correspondent accounts go down again

The balances at correspondent accounts of Russian commercial banks dropped again this morning. This reduction totaled more than 7bn rubles (about $220m) in Russia and almost 4bn rubles (about $126m) in Moscow and the surrounding region. Experts reported that the balances had been falling for the third business day in a row, since January 9. The fall in balances at correspondent accounts over this period totaled more than 35bn rubles (about $1.1bn) in Russia and 28bn rubles (about $880m) in Moscow, thus the balances reached only 75bn rubles (about $2.36bn) and 41bn rubles (about $1.29bn) in Russia and the Moscow region respectively. These balances are the lowest since October 2002.

However, this fall did not lead to the worsening of ruble liquidity of domestic banks and a ruble deficit. Only-day ruble credit rates were 4-5 percent by midday today, which was only slightly above the credit rates on Friday, January 10, but they are still rather low.