quote:

Russian Banking System Teetering, Accelerated Withdrawals Underway

The Financial Times reports that the freeze on depositor withdrawals at Russian bank Globex is leading to high levels of withdrawals at other Russian banks, which doesn't qualify as being a run.....yet.

From the Financial Times (hat tip reader Michael):

Globex on Wednesday banned depositors from withdrawing their money as confidence in the Russian banking system began to show signs of evaporating.

Globex, a mid-sized retail bank with assets of $4bn (¤2.95bn, £2.32bn), is the first Russian bank to experience a run on deposits during the crisis. It lost 13 per cent of its deposits last month, according to Maxim Raskosnov, an analyst at Renaissance capital, and a further 15 per cent this month according to Emilya Alieva, Globex’s vice-president.

At least a dozen other Russian banks have reported a sharp rise in withdrawals and account closures.

An economist with a leading western bank in Moscow said Globex was probably the first in what could be a number of bank panics, if the government did not take concerted action soon. “I think there are a large number of small and medium sized banks that are in the same situation,” she said.

Despite a Kremlin promise of $200bn in relief funds – $87bn this week – the fall-out of a stock market plunge and the global credit crunch appears to be worse than anticipated, analysts say.

So far, the crunch has not affected the living standards of ordinary Russians, but a rash of bank failures could.

Banks across Russia have faced a rise in outflows as depositors have begun to lose trust in all but the biggest state banks, VTB and Sberbank, which have received most of the government’s liquidity support.

Tatyana Sadovskaya, the director of a branch of Khnati Mansisk Bank in the city of Nizhnevartovsk, on Wednesday told Interfax news agency that in response to rumours of her bank’s insolvency: “People have formed long lines at cashiers and at bankomats, people are taking their deposits and closing their accounts.”


From a later FT article "The East is in the red":

Across central and eastern Europe, the global crisis is biting hard, albeit very unevenly. In Russia, the authorities have set aside nearly $200bn (£116bn, ¤149bn) for a financial market rescue, Ukraine is in talks with the International Monetary Fund over emergency loans of up to $14bn, Hungary was on Thursday bailed out with a ¤5bn ($6.7bn, £3.9bn) loan facility from the European Central Bank.

Latvia and Estonia are suffering the region’s first recessions in a decade, while growth in oil-rich Kazakhstan has slowed to a crawl. Even in Poland, where Donald Tusk, the prime minister, insists his country is “an island of stability”, the crisis has raised doubts about Warsaw’s euro entry plans.

Stock markets have plunged accordingly, with Polish shares trading at less than half their peak levels and Ukraine’s down by three-quarters. Property markets have slowed, even if developers are still trying to hold up prices. After riding high earlier in 2008, some currencies have come under pressure, notably the Hungarian forint. In Ukraine, where the central bank has intervened to support the hryvnia, the credit default swap rate, a risk measure, has soared 1,400 points to 1,900, among the world’s worst.

The financial whipsaw has cut billionaires down to size, not least Oleg Deripaska, the Russian metals oligarch, who has sold valuable stakes to raise cash. Others are grabbing opportunities to buy cheaply: Mikhail Prokhorov, the Russian nickel investor, acquired 50 per cent of Renaissance Capital, a Moscow bank, for $500m – about one-quarter of its value of a year ago.

With the global crisis still raging, despite the calming effects of this week’s support moves in the US and the European Union, it is impossible to predict how events will play themselves out in a region increasingly important to the west as an export market and low-cost production base. But hopes it might escape unscathed have evaporated. Apart from corporate casualties, some countries could run into difficulties funding current account deficits. Erik Berglof, chief economist of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, says: “There is enormous uncertainty right now . . . These countries could deal with rising borrowing costs and an economic slowdown coming from the US and western Europe, but a complete shutdown of international borrowing – nobody can withstand that.”

quote:

A Russian friend once told me a joke she heard in Moscow in the early 90s. Most of the jokes she told me do not translate very well, but this one does, I think.

A man goes into a bank and says to the teller, “I would like to open an account. Who should I see?”

“A psychiatrist.”

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Op vrijdag 17 oktober 2008 01:59 schreef Drugshond het volgende:
Van een andere blog...
[..]

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Op vrijdag 17 oktober 2008 01:43 schreef sitting_elfling het volgende:
Rusland is overigens nooit een sterke economie geweest, ze leunen puur op hun primaire producten zoals olie en gas.

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Op vrijdag 17 oktober 2008 12:43 schreef Drugshond het volgende:
Oil & Gas: 44,01% (busted)
Financials 20,64% (busted)

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Op vrijdag 17 oktober 2008 12:57 schreef shilizous_88 het volgende:
Wat is de kans dat er van die Russische banken gaan omvallen?

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Wat zouden de wereldwijde economische gevolgen van zoiets zijn?

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Russian Default Risk Soars: LTCM Repeat Play

The Telegraph is reporting Russian default risk tops Iceland as crisis deepens.

Russia's financial crisis is escalating with lightning speed as foreigners pull funds from the country and the debt markets start to price a serious risk of sovereign default.

The cost of insuring Russian bonds against bankruptcy rocketed to extreme levels yesterday. Spreads on credit default swaps (CDS) reached 1,123, higher than Iceland's debt before it sought a rescue from the International Monetary Fund.

Moves by Hungary, Ukraine and Belarus to seek emergency loans from the IMF have now set off a dangerous chain reaction across Eastern Europe. Romania had to raise overnight interest rates to 900pc on Wednesday to stem capital flight, recalling the wild episodes of Europe's ERM crisis in 1992. The CDS spreads on Ukraine's debt have topped 2,800, signalling total revulsion by investors.

Rating agency Standard & Poor's issued a downgrade alert on Russian bonds yesterday, warning that a series of state rescue packages worth $200bn (£124bn) could start to erode the credit-worthiness of the state.

Russian companies must roll over $47bn of foreign loans over the next two months, and a further $150bn or so next year, a task that has become close to impossible as investors flee Eastern Europe.

"The surge in Russian CDS spreads is paralysing the whole system. The government can offer very little help to the banks at this point because its own sovereign debt is in question," he said.

"This crisis is starting to look like the Black Wednesady in 1992. Unless we see an extension of central bank swaps in dollars and euros to Eastern Europe within days to stop this uncontrolled process of deleveraging, this could get out of control and do serious damage to Western Europe. We could see the euro fall to parity against the dollar by next year," he said.

Genius Fails Again

It is fitting that Russia is back in the news because it was the demise of Long Term Capital Management that kicked off a string of moral hazard interventions by the Fed that continues to this day.

Please see Genius Fails Again for a recap of LTCM and the 1997 Russian Bond market collapse that then threatened the financial system. The derivatives mess today is thousands of times greater.

Let's explore a chart of the Russian Stock Market to see if we can find a pattern similar to the bond collapse in 1997.

LETRX Russia Fund


There was probably no better place to be than Russia right after the collapse of the Russian bond market in 1997. Any bets this time? Let's flashback to September 5th looking for clues that might help.

Russian Fund Outflows No Surprise

Reuters is reporting Russian stock fund outflows at 9 weeks

Russian equity funds had a ninth consecutive week of cash outflows amid concerns over property rights, Boston-based fund tracker EPFR Global said on Friday.

Recent harsh criticism from Prime Minister Vladimir Putin against coal company Mechel, harassment of non-Russian managers at oil company TNK-BP, the flexing of Russia's military might in Georgia and its drawn-out removal of forces has left foreign investors shaken.

"No real surprise. If there is any surprise it is that people are not taking their money out faster given the pretty clear evidence of any hopes that (President Dmitry) Medvedev will moderate Putin or do much to protect property rights," said Cameron Brandt, global markets analyst at EPFR.

It seems like sentence should read "No real surprise. If there is any surprise it is that people are not taking their money out faster given there is no evidence of any hopes that (President Dmitry) Medvedev will moderate Putin or do much to protect property rights".

An exact repeat play percentage wise would take LETRX down to 6.72. I do not think it goes that far, but then again I am known for being widely optimistic.

Developing Nation Bond Yields Soar on Russia Rating-Cut Outlook

Bloomberg is reporting Developing Nation Bond Yields Soar on Russia Rating-Cut Outlook.

Developing nations' borrowing costs neared a six-year high after Standard & Poor's threatened to cut Russia's debt ratings as the global credit crisis deepened.

The extra yield investors demand to own emerging-market government bonds instead of U.S. Treasuries rose 27 basis points, or 0.27 percentage point, to 8.29 percentage points, the biggest since November 2002, according to JPMorgan Chase & Co.'s EMBI+ index. The annual cost to protect Russia's bonds from default soared as S&P lowered Russia's ratings outlook to negative on concern the cost of the government's bank rescue will climb.

Russia has committed as much as 15 percent of its gross domestic product to propping up banks, including a $50 billion credit line to development bank Vnesheconombank. Russia's international reserves, the world's third largest, declined by $14.9 billion last week after the central bank sold currency to support the ruble as investors pulled money out of the country.

"There is now no safe haven globally other than a deeply indebted U.S. government," said Jim Reid, head of fundamental credit strategy at Deutsche Bank AG in London.

No Safe Havens

"There is now no safe haven globally other than a deeply indebted U.S. government." That unfortunately appears to be the very sad state of affairs.

quote:

Russia's banal reality lies in between energy superpower and bankrupt state

Russia has been losing $10bn in foreign reserves a week since it snatched South Ossetia and ramped up the new Cold War with nuclear threats.

Russia's banal reality lies in between energy superpower and bankrupt state

Shoppers in downtown Moscow Photo: AP

A fifth of the Kremlin’s fire-fighting fund has gone before the economic crisis even starts. Would the Medvedev-Putin duo have provoked the West so nonchalantly had they known that global recession would soon cut the price of Urals crude oil to $49.35 a barrel, knocking away the chief prop of Kremlin finance and Russian power?

The pace of capital flight quickened last week to $16bn after a botched mini-devaluation by the central bank. Tinkering with currency bands is hazardous in a country where memories of the 1998 savings wipeout are still fresh.

The Kremlin already faces a run on Russia’s banks as depositors rush to switch their roubles into dollars, despite the $200bn financial rescue package. Russia’s Globex bank suspended withdrawals by depositors on Wednesday. Kommersant newspaper reports that the deposit loss from rouble accounts reached 54pc at Sobinbank in October, 27pc at Globex, 25pc at Raiffeisenbank, 24pc at Unicredit, and 22pc at Alfa.

“The deposit run has intensified to dramatic levels. The government’s attempts to slow panic migration to foreign currencies has failed,” said Marina Vlasenko, from Commerzbank.

The central bank is caught in a fixed exchange rate trap. Pegs create the illusion of currency stability just long enough to lull everybody into a false sense of security (note Greece and Spain inside EMU). Russia either burns reserves propping up the rouble, or it risks a self-feeding devaluation spiral.

There is a third way, of course. Premier Vladimir Putin issued a veiled threat on Monday to impose capital controls. Money flows out of the country would be strictly monitored, and “corporate egotism, any kind of corruption or abuse” would not be tolerated. Yes, he also said that “legal movement of capital overseas is a civilized financial transaction. There is no question of any state bans”. Take your pick.

The cost of insuring against Kremlin default tells us that somebody is worried. Credit default swaps (CDS) on Russia’s debt traded at 827 last week, higher than Hungary’s debt (605) before it secured an IMF rescue. Gazprom debt was off the charts at 1155.

CDS contracts can overstate a case. But investors have rediscovered that the Russia story — stripped of BRIC’s happy talk — is still not much more than a leveraged play on oil and gas. Commodities made up 85pc of export revenues at bubble peak in May, just before the RTS index on Moscow’s bourse began its 73pc crash. A trillion dollars of paper wealth has vanished.

The government’ spending plan for 2009-2011 is based on a Urals oil price of $95. Finance minister Alexei Kudrin said the state would dip into its Reserve Fund (now 8.2pc of GDP) to cover any shortfall.

This is not a strategy that can survive the global slump we face next year. The Kremlin lives off energy taxes. It has no other income to speak of. The domestic bond market is tiny.

That is why it had to order oil companies last week to renew export shipments. They were selling at near $10 a barrel in the domestic market because crude prices have fallen to a level that no longer makes it rational to sell abroad given the state’s $40 export tariff.

Russia must soon choose: either bleed its oil industry to death, or slash spending and face street riots. It is already mobilizing the apparatus of coercion. The Moscow Times bravely ran the headline “Police get orders to crush crisis unrest”.

Interior minister Rashid Nurgaliyev said: “Anti-crisis groups are to be set up in the regions to intercept any early indications of destabilization.”

Marie Mendras, a Russia advisor to French president Nicolas Sarkozy, said the Kremlin is responding the only way it knows how. “The Putin regime is politically closed, won’t listen, and is incapable of adapting to this sort of financial cr

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Op vrijdag 24 oktober 2008 16:57 schreef Klopkoek het volgende:
Goed zo, dit is heel goed nieuws Rusland is samen met China een bedreiging voor het westen dus laat maar klappen.

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Op vrijdag 17 oktober 2008 11:57 schreef HarryP het volgende:
De olie en het gas van Rusland blijft in europa zeer welkom.

Daarnaast heeft Rusland al laten zien dat ze prima kunnen leven zonder het kapitalistische systeem.
Als het echt slecht wordt dan is het terug naar het Socialisme voor Rusland een kleine stap terug.

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Op woensdag 19 november 2008 19:30 schreef henkway het volgende:

[..]

Nee de oligarchen hebben veel te veel macht en zullen dat nooit toestaan, de harder de landing hoe eerder een economie weer opstaat en ik denk dat rusland er beter uitkomt dan het westen

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Op woensdag 26 november 2008 14:07 schreef slaapvaak het volgende:
Putin had voorheen zijn steun gekocht door de stijgende grondstof prijzen. Het leven werd beter, inperking van rechten etc. nam men daardoor bij de koop op.

De russische economie is minder veelzijdig en dynamisch dan de westerse, demografisch crisis zal alleen maar erger worden. India en Brazilie hebben nog meer toekomst.

quote:

Russische economie nadert recessie

Moskou, 12 dec. De Russische economie nadert een recessie. Dat heeft een functionaris van het ministerie van Economische Ontwikkeling, Andrej Klepatsj, vandaag gezegd. ,,We krijgen zeker twee kwartalen van negatieve groei'', zei de functionaris tegen het Russische persbureau Ria Novosti.

Van een recessie is officieel sprake als de economie minimaal twee kwartalen achter elkaar krimpt. De krimp zette in oktober in en de maanden november en december zullen de grootste daling laten zien, aldus Klepatsj. Vooral de industriële productie is zeer sterk gekrompen.

Over heel 2008 genomen komt de groei van de Russische economie lager uit dan verwacht, maakte Klepatsj verder bekend. Hij zei niet hoeveel lager de groei zou uitkomen dan de 6,8 procent die eerder werd geraamd.

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Arrestaties bij betoging tegen invoerrechten

De oproerpolitie heeft vandaag in de Oost-Russische stad Vladivostok honderd tot tweehonderd mensen gearresteerd tijdens een demonstratie, meldden lokale media. Ongeveer vijfhonderd betogers protesteerden tegen een verhoging van de importheffingen op nieuwe auto's uit het buitenland.

De Russische overheid wil met de nieuwe maatregelen Russische autofabrikanten beschermen en de verkoop in eigen land opkrikken. De belastingverhoging gaat volgende maand in.

Het importeren van een auto uit het buitenland, met name uit Japan, is populair in Rusland. Vooral in het verre oosten van Rusland worden volop Japanse auto's geïmporteerd en doorverkocht. Japanse auto's zijn geliefd, vanwege de kwaliteit, kosten en nabijheid van het land. Russische auto's worden gezien als kwalitatief minder goed en de inefficiënte productie maakt de auto's duur.

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Op zondag 21 december 2008 19:30 schreef Drugshond het volgende:

[..]

Zal Amerika dezelfde stunt uithalen ?

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Op vrijdag 17 oktober 2008 11:57 schreef HarryP het volgende:


Daarnaast heeft Rusland al laten zien dat ze prima kunnen leven zonder het kapitalistische systeem.

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Op zondag 21 december 2008 23:33 schreef Probably_on_pcp het volgende:

[..]

Hoe kom je daar zo bij? Klinkt meer als propaganda...

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Op woensdag 19 november 2008 18:42 schreef Poekieman het volgende:
Misschien moet Putin de olie en gaskranen wat dichter draaien, dan gaan de prijzen vanzelf weer omhoog. Minder leveren tegen een hogere prijs. Lijkt me een no-brainer.

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Op zondag 21 december 2008 23:35 schreef henkway het volgende:

[..]

Er is geen land dat zo extreem kapitalistisch is als Rusland, waar iedereen en alles te koop is en er geen minimumloon bestaat en ouderen zonder kinderen en gehandicapten gewoon dood gaan

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Op zondag 21 december 2008 23:42 schreef Probably_on_pcp het volgende:

[..]

Ok maar als je zegt: ze kunnen prima leven zonder het kapitalische systeem, dan heb je het dus over de regerende elite neem ik aan.

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Op zondag 21 december 2008 23:35 schreef henkway het volgende:

[..]

Er is geen land dat zo extreem kapitalistisch is als Rusland, waar iedereen en alles te koop is en er geen minimumloon bestaat en ouderen zonder kinderen en gehandicapten gewoon dood gaan

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Op maandag 22 december 2008 00:37 schreef TubewayDigital het volgende:

[..]


heb je enig verstand van zaken ?

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Op zondag 21 december 2008 19:30 schreef Drugshond het volgende:

[..]

Zal Amerika dezelfde stunt uithalen ?

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Op maandag 22 december 2008 08:56 schreef simmu het volgende:

[..]

ja. maak je borst maar nat voor een flinke ronde protectionisme. obama is een erkend voorstander ervan!

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Roebel bereikt nieuw dieptepunt

De Russische roebel heeft gisteren opnieuw een dieptepunt bereikt en komt daarmee dicht bij de ondergrens die de Russische Centrale Bank twee weken geleden stelde.

De koers van de munt daalde gisteren tot een waarde van 40,60 ten opzichte van het gewogen gemiddelde van de dollar en de euro. Dat is een fractie verwijderd van de waarde van 41, die de Bank op 22 januari als maximaal toelaatbaar stelde, voordat zij zou ingrijpen.

De koers van gisteren brengt de roebel op zijn laagste niveau sinds het uitbreken van de crisis deze zomer. Sinds juli is de munt zo’n 35 procent in waarde gedaald. De roebel staat onder druk als gevolg van de dalende olieprijs en de economische crisis, die Rusland harder dan de meeste andere landen heeft geraakt. Volgens sommigen belandt Rusland dit jaar nog in een zware recessie.

Volgens analisten heeft de daling van gisteren vooral te maken met het feit dat beleggers willen weten in hoeverre de Centrale Bank bereid is om de roebel te ondersteunen. De Centrale Bank ondersteunt de munt door roebels aan te kopen met buitenlandse valuta, zodra die buiten een vastgestelde ‘bandbreedte’ treedt. De bank zou gisteren nog niet hebben ingegrepen.

De effectieve devaluatie van 10 procent van twee weken geleden was een afwijking van de vorige koers van de Centrale Bank. Tot nu toe werd de roebel slechts met kleine stapjes gedevalueerd. Moskou vreesde dat een drastische waardevermindering zou leiden tot een run op de banken.

Critici zagen die geleidelijke devaluaties echter als een katalysator voor de economische crisis omdat die een zwaar beslag legden op de Russische geldreserves. De steunpolitiek heeft Rusland sinds het begin van de crisis al bijna 200 miljard euro gekost, eenderde van de reserves, volgens officiële schattingen. Volgens onofficiële schattingen zouden de reserves zelfs met ruim de helft zijn gedaald.

Premier Poetin heeft herhaaldelijk gewaarschuwd dat journalisten terughoudend moeten zijn met hun berichtgeving over de devaluaties. Hij zegt geen paniekreacties te willen door berichtgeving die doet herinneren aan de crisis van 1998. Toen verloor de roebel 70 procent van zijn waarde, wat de facto leidde tot het faillissement van Rusland.

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Op vrijdag 17 oktober 2008 12:18 schreef SeLang het volgende:

[..]

Dat is het geval met veel emerging markets.

Hieronder de sector percentages van de FTSE BRIC 50 index (per 30 juni 2008):

Oil & Gas: 44,01%
Basic materials 23,24%
Financials 20,64%
Telecom 4,81%
Industrials 2,90%
Utilities 1,82%
Consumer goods 1,74%
Technology 0,84%

quote:

Premier Poetin heeft herhaaldelijk gewaarschuwd dat journalisten terughoudend moeten zijn met hun berichtgeving over de devaluaties. Hij zegt geen paniekreacties te willen door berichtgeving die doet herinneren aan de crisis van 1998. Toen verloor de roebel 70 procent van zijn waarde, wat de facto leidde tot het faillissement van Rusland.

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Russia About to Default On Sovereign Debt Again

The Nikkei newspaper has released a very troubling if not totally surprising story, that Russia will ask foreign lenders to reschedule loans worth $400 billion, potentially the equivalent of a debt default depending on how it is structured. Just a reminder, the last time Russia defaulted on its bonds it set off a cataclysmic chain of events that terminated with Long Term Capital Management's implosion and the first major Wall Street mediated rescue of the financial system. This report has already caused the Euro in early Japanese trading to drop significantly against both the Dollar and Yen.


(Euro/Dollar)


(Ruble/Dollar)

“European banks may face more financial difficulties, given the Nikkei’s report that Russian banks may negotiate a debt rescheduling,” said Yuji Saito, head of the foreign-exchange group in Tokyo at Societe Generale SA, France’s third-largest bank by market value. “It is natural that the euro is sold” to $1.27 and 117 yen today, he said.

According to Bloomberg:

The Russian Association of Regional Banks has submitted a plan for rescheduling loans to the Russian government, the Nikkei newspaper said, citing an interview with Anatoly Aksakov, the head of the association. The group is already in talks with HSBC Holdings Plc and Deutsche Bank AG, the Nikkei reported.

A $400 billion dislocation in credit markets is not what the global economy needs. However, we have no doubt that the equity market will have already factored this news and rise to new depression highs tomorrow.

Jim Rogers in Russia : No Future for the Rubble , I buy only Yen 05 FEB 2009

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The Euro is not going to survive either , it wil be gone in the next fyfteen - twenty years

Jim Rogers Russia will continue to disintegrate !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Russian Defaults Would Be Signal to ‘Attack’ Ruble, BOA-ML Says

March 27 (Bloomberg) -- Russia’s ruble may breach the level the central bank has vowed to defend if the country’s banks reveal they have more loans in or close to default than current forecasts show, Bank of America Securities-Merrill Lynch said.

As much as 10 percent of the loan portfolio at OAO Sberbank, which has more than half of bank deposits in Russia, could be in or close to default, said Yulia Tsepliaeva, chief economist in Moscow at Bank of America-Merrill Lynch. That’s almost five times the level at the beginning of March.

“Should the situation for non-performing loans be worse than it is now, it could be a catalyst for a return to bad sentiment on Russia,” Tsepliaeva said in an interview in the Russian capital today. “If the central bank had to use its reserves to support a big bank, investors would look at this as a signal to attack the ruble.”