You do not need, but we are not proud – Newspaper Kommersant No. 191 (7392) of 10/14/2022

Net foreign exchange sales by exporters have been surprisingly stable since April 2022 — about $20 billion a month, the Bank of Russia said in a profile review, the share of the yuan in foreign exchange trading exceeded 30%. In addition to importers, who are gradually moving from large banks to small ones, “friendly” non-residents acquire growing amounts of foreign currency on the Russian market. In September, individuals were more likely to sell than buy currency; they have not yet shown much interest in yuanization as an alternative to dollarization.

The “Financial Market Risk Review” of the Bank of Russia for September 2022 contains a set of data describing the current state of the foreign exchange market. Recall that the last week of September was a week of turbulence associated with the announcement of partial mobilization in the Russian Federation, which changed some of the trends in the financial markets, however, this can only be judged more precisely by October and November statistics.

Data on foreign currency sales by the largest exporters are important primarily for assessing the state of the foreign exchange market, and in the context of the closeness of detailed data on the trade balance, they make it possible to judge the situation with imports, at least in general.

According to the Central Bank, in September, despite the deterioration in the situation with foreign exchange liquidity at the end of the month, the ruble strengthened by 3% against the US dollar. On September 21-30, the stock exchange in the yuan-ruble and dollar-yuan currency pairs saw an almost two-fold increase in turnover (in the ruble-dollar pair – one and a half times), as a result, operations with the yuan in September amounted to 30.4% of the total trading volume.

At the same time, sales by large currency exporters in September were similar to those in August ($21 billion versus $20.8 billion a month earlier), since April ($19.1 billion) they have remained surprisingly stable. The net sellers of currency remained mainly large (systemically important, SZKO in the terminology of the Central Bank) banks, which serve exporters.

Importers, on the contrary, prefer smaller banks, which is probably due to the large number of SZKOs under sanctions: if in August they bought currencies for 321 billion rubles, then in September – already for 544 billion rubles. Other large buyers of foreign currency in the Russian Federation, non-residents from “friendly” countries, in August purchased currencies for 26 billion rubles, in September – already for 130 billion rubles. The Central Bank assumes that in this case we are talking about settlement services for citizens of the Russian Federation through “friendly” banking systems of other countries.

Finally, the situation with individuals is completely unobvious: on the stock exchange, according to the Central Bank, they sold currencies worth 139 billion rubles in September, and through banks on the over-the-counter market they bought currencies worth 162 billion rubles.

Unlike legal entities, the yuanization of their operations is small: in the purchases of foreign currency by individuals, the yuan amounted to only the equivalent of 23 billion rubles. In any case, the balance of transactions with the currency of individuals in September is negative – this is 22 billion rubles. the net sale of foreign currency for rubles, the devaluation trend was stronger than the trend of buying foreign currency to leave the Russian Federation, which accompanied the massive (tens of thousands of people) crossing the country’s borders due to threats of mobilization.

The Central Bank also provides new data on the state of “type C accounts” with NSD – we recall that these are mainly dividends on Russian securities owned by unfriendly non-residents and blocked in the perimeter of accounts of this type. As of October 1, these accounts have a little more than 200 billion rubles. (as of August 1 – about 120 billion rubles). Recall that the income from the placement of these funds in Russian instruments (but not the funds themselves) is proposed by the Bank of Russia to be sent to the special fund to compensate Russian financial market participants whose assets and payments on them are blocked, including in NSD. The depository itself estimates them in ruble terms at an amount slightly exceeding 350 billion rubles as of October 1, it will take a long time to discuss the “set-off” in NSD, the funds it needs in the form of income from investing funds in type C accounts will be comparable to the necessary ones only after some years. However, the Central Bank does not hide the fact that in the first place it would like to solve the problems of retail rather than corporate investors in this way. It should be noted that in the context of the foreign exchange market, the amounts in question are more or less significant, although, apparently, they cannot have a big impact on exchange rate formation.

Dmitry Butrin