The dollar fits into the scenario – Kommersant FM

Russians were actively buying dollars in September. This is evidenced by a study conducted by Russian Standard Bank. According to its results, last month citizens were almost three times more likely to buy cash dollars than to sell them. The bank’s statistics show that the average sales bill for American currency was $295, and the average purchase bill was $814. In September, Russians most often purchased and sold foreign currency at bank branches. At the same time, offline conversions accounted for 88% of the total number of foreign exchange transactions last month.

How can one explain the high interest of Russians in cash dollars? Investment strategist of the Arikapital management company Sergei Suverov associates it with several reasons:

“Indeed, the population began to buy dollars again. A full-fledged replacement for the American currency has not yet emerged, despite the fact that Russian shares grew quite significantly in 2023. But still, if we take the integral return, then for investments in dollars it exceeds the average return of Russian shares.

In addition, they buy cash dollars because they are free from infrastructure risks that can occur when buying non-cash dollars. Banknotes can be used on trips abroad, which is also important.

Also, the population is probably buying dollars, because there are more and more forecasts for a new devaluation, although this is not very justified, but, nevertheless, people believe in these stories. Just in September, a ban on the export of petroleum products from Russia came into force, which also, in general, fundamentally affects the position of the Russian ruble, because it reduces the influx of export foreign currency earnings into the Russian Federation.”

In September, many Russians, when buying cash dollars, acted simply according to their usual scenario after the weakening of the Russian currency, says Alexander Davydov, an analyst at the InstaForex group of companies:

“Why did we see an increase in interest in the dollar in this study? You shouldn’t write off the inertia of thinking. Most people are not so immersed in all this geopolitical reasoning, some kind of macroeconomic calculations and the like. They simply see that the ruble is getting cheaper and the dollar is getting more expensive. That’s it, we need to buy a dollar. Why dollar? Yes, because for the last 30 years it was the American currency that was perceived by everyone as something reliable. And abandoning this mindset cannot happen with the snap of a finger. This will take several years.”

In offline transactions with euros in September, according to Russian Standard Bank, purchases also predominated, but they were 19% more than sales.

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Andrey Zagorsky