In June, the Russians withdrew and placed on accounts abroad a record amount of money - 266.1 billion rubles, or about $ 4.7 billion. Such data are provided by the Bank of Russia, RBC drew attention to the statistics.
The Bank of Russia has been keeping statistics on withdrawals abroad only since 2018, so in numerical terms this may be an absolute record in the entire history of modern Russia. For comparison: according to the results of May, about $1.5 billion was withdrawn from Russia, that is, the amount of withdrawn funds more than tripled over the month. The previous record was set in February, when Russia launched a war against Ukraine - $4.5 billion.
According to the regulator, as of July 1, the total amount of funds of Russians abroad was estimated at 2.29 trillion rubles, or about $44.7 billion. It turns out that in June this volume increased by 11.6% against an increase of 4% in May. Experts attribute the growth in the withdrawal of funds abroad with the easing of restrictions by the Central Bank, as well as with an excess of "electronic currency" in the Russian market.
“Restrictions on the storage, withdrawal or transfer of currency by some banks contributed to the search for alternative options for storing and using money,” Yegor Krivosheya, head of research at the Skolkovo-NES Center, explains the logic of the Russians.
For the first time, the regulator introduced restrictions on the withdrawal of foreign currency abroad in March, then the limit was $5,000, in April it was increased to $10,000, in May to $50,000, and from July to $1 million. Russian banks created an additional incentive to withdraw funds abroad , which, with the support of the Bank of Russia, began to squeeze out the foreign currency of "unfriendly countries" from the accounts, introducing fees for servicing foreign currency accounts, and also prohibiting SWIFT transfers. Another factor, according to Krivosheya, is “card tourism”: Russians withdraw money to cards of foreign banks.
At the same time, experts admit that the outflow of funds from the Russian banking system will continue to decline, and July may even update records. The publication notes that in July, Russians bought foreign currency for a record amount of 237.1 billion rubles (about $4.15 billion), while the foreign exchange balance of Russians on accounts in Russian banks decreased by $3 billion. was estimated as of July 1 at $76.7 billion, since the beginning of the year this figure has fallen by 20.2% ($19.4 billion).
“It is necessary to take into account not only transfers of funds from deposits and accounts opened in Russian banks, but also the purchase of foreign currency with its further transfer to accounts abroad,” the managing director of Gazprombank Private Banking told the publication.
Cash statistics confirm the expert’s words: since the beginning of the year, the volume of cash in the hands of Russians has grown by 13.5%, or by $11.5 billion, while the volume of foreign currency in foreign accounts has grown by $14.1 billion, demonstrating an increase of 46.1% . Experts estimate that the outflow of currency from the country is either already at its peak, or is passing this peak. They expect in the near future to reduce the outflow to the level of $ 3-4 billion per month.
