Ruble balances break record

At the beginning of business today, ruble balances at commercial bank correspondent accounts advanced sharply. Across the country, the growth was RUR21.7bn (about $682.38m); in the Moscow region, it amounted to over RUR19bn (about $597.48m). Such a considerable increase has been registered for the first time since the beginning of the year. This morning, ruble balances at commercial banks were almost RUR77bn (about $2.42bn) throughout Russia and over RUR48bn (about $1.51bn) in Moscow. These figures have been the highest over the past two weeks.

In the opinion of commercial bank dealers, in addition to the completion of payments on the Slavneft purchase, the significant improvement of the situation on the ruble market was brought about by the closing of an auction for RUR7.5bn (about $235.85m) in state bonds. In total, after these two deals the ruble market has been saturated by over RUR66bn, or over $2bn. Due to this, this morning the level of ruble credit rates has been twice as low as it was yesterday night.