London, Tuesday, 01 March 2022 -
The Russian ruble fell to 105 per dollar on Tuesday, reverting to Monday's record low of 122, as the Central Bank of Russia's significant interest rate hike was insufficient to counteract the raft of Western sanctions.
After agreeing to remove important Russian banks from the SWIFT interbank system and freeze the assets of Russia's central bank, Western allies largely hampered Russian firms' ability to do business overseas.
The United States also struck back at Moscow by prohibiting Americans from transacting with Russia's central bank, ministry of finance, and sovereign wealth fund.
In an emergency move on Monday, the CBR boosted its key policy rate to 20% from 9.5 percent, ordered export-led enterprises to sell 80% of their foreign currency, and barred foreigners from selling Russian equities, all in an effort to prevent further currency depreciation.
At the same time, the central bank revealed that at the end of February, RUB 1.8 trillion was removed from Russian banks.
(Written and edited by: The Decision Maker)
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