The Bank of Russia warned brokers about the inadmissibility of high commissions for the withdrawal of securities

The Bank of Russia has warned depositories about the inadmissibility of retaining customers at the expense of protective tariffs for transferring securities to other financial institutions. As RBC Investments was specified in the press service of the Central Bank, the regulator has already recorded such practices in the activities of some depositories. In particular, the regulator pointed to the case when non-sanctioned brokers and their depositories, who received clients from sanctioned investment companies, refused to let them go.

Thus, according to the Bank of Russia, some depositories have set a tariff for the services of transferring the client’s securities that is significantly higher than the average market level. “There are cases when the value of the transfer exceeded the market value of the portfolio of transferred securities. The number of complaints on this topic is insignificant. The Bank of Russia responds to identified problems at an early stage, before the accumulation of a large number of complaints from affected consumers,” the regulator’s press service said.

As a measure of influence on the depositories, the Bank of Russia sent them a letter with a recommendation not to impede the desire of clients to transfer to other participants in the securities market. “In particular, to set the minimum possible tariffs for clients if they decide to change the depository, if such clients were forced to transfer to another depository due to unfriendly actions of foreign states,” the press service noted.

In response to Russia’s military operation in Ukraine, the United States imposed blocking sanctions on Russian financial institutions. Under the sanctions, in particular, VTB, Sberbank, Alfa-Bank and Otkritie fell. After the introduction of restrictions, banks were forced to transfer all client assets or only foreign securities to accounts with depositories of other market participants in order to avoid blocking these assets.

However, a number of brokerage companies have organized a centralized withdrawal of client portfolios. Thus, assets were transferred automatically and forcibly, but clients were deprived of the opportunity to choose a new broker on their own.

Read more about the situation with blocked Russian assets – in the material “Kommersant” “Mediocre defrosting”.

Milena Kostereva