Russian banks to meet commitments before citizens in any currency

Russian banks have enough resources to meet all their commitments before the citizens in any currency, Russian Central Bank’s chief Elvira Nabiullina vowed on Saturday.

"We have enough resources and tools to ensure that banks meet their commitments before the citizens in any currency," Nabiullina said on Rossiya’1 TV channel during the Vesti on Saturday with Sergei Brilev news program.

Last week, Nabiullina said that the Central Bank saw no threats for foreign currency deposits in case of tougher sanctions against Russia and was not going to force banks to convert these deposits into rubles.

Earlier in an interview with Bloomberg TV head of VTB Bank Andrei Kostin said that the clients of Russian banks would be able to return their deposits in dollars in case the US imposed sanctions against Russia’s banking system. But he did not specify how it would be done and in what currency.

Head of Russia’s top lender Sberbank German Gref told reporters that the bank was not considering plans of converting dollar deposits into rubles and did not see an increased demand for converting the deposits.