Russia’s Gazprombank ramps US dollar operation fee to 12%

By bne IntelliNews December 5, 2023

Russia’s third largest bank Gazprombank, affiliated with the natural gas giant Gazprom, will ramp up the commission fee for handling US dollars on its corporate accounts to 12%, according to Kommersant.

As followed by bne IntelliNews, Gazprombank is the only large unsanctioned Russian bank due to its role in the handling of the international trade settlements. In autumn 2023 amid the ruble weakening, Russia has reintroduced currency controls for exporters and is reportedly closely monitoring large-scale Fx deals on the domestic market.

The analysts surveyed by Kommersant see the US dollar settling commission as “prohibitive” and believe that the bank wants to drive its clients to transfer the toxic sanctioned currency into other banks, to convert it as soon as possible, or switch to non-dollar settlements.

For now, Gazprombank does not charge commission for the handling and storage of euros, and the commission for other currencies (Swiss francs, Swedish krona, Japanese yen) will remain at 1.5%. While other banks charge much smaller fees for US dollar accounts, opening new currency accounts has become virtually impossible, according to the survey of the market participants by Kommersant.

Despite Gazprombank not being sanctioned, at the beginning of 2023 US banks such as JP Morgan Chase Bank and Bank of New York Mellon stopped servicing GPB's dollar correspondent accounts.

#Russia #banking #Gazprombank #dollar #currency #trade

Read in IntelliNews Pro

Get IntelliNews Pro

Related Articles

Russian SovComBank ups freefloat to 10%

Russian SovComBank announced that its majority shareholder Sovco Capital Partners and some key managers have cut their stakes in the capital in favour of “institutional and retail investors”. ... more

Egypt reports progress on El Dabaa NPP construction

Egypt has reported progress on the construction of its first nuclear power plant (NPP), El Dabaa, located about 320 km north of Cairo. Russia’s state-owned nuclear energy corporation Rosatom has ... more

Russia approves VTB Bank buying Postal Bank

The Russian government has approved the acquisition of the Postal Bank by the country’s second-largest lender state-controlled VTB Bank, the head of VTB Andrey Kostin told Rossiya 24 TV ... more

Dismiss

Chat with usLiveChat