UrBC, Moscow, October 29, 2018. According to the Russian banks’ reports as of October 1, 2018, Russian nationals kept withdrawing their dollar savings ($662m) as well as their ruble savings (RU 141bn) from Russian banks throughout September. Most of the money fled from the banks mentioned in the U.S. anti-Russia package that included a proposal to ban foreign currency transactions, Kommersant reports.

Sberbank’s foreign currency deposits shrank by over $901m in the course of last month; those of VTB dropped by $95m; those of Sovcombank by $55m. Some of these funds got transferred to Russian subsidiaries of foreign banks such as Raiffeisenbank (+$233m), Rosbank (+$46m), and Unicredit (+$41m).

Alfa-Bank’s foreign currency deposits also increased by $100m, as did those of two partly state-controlled banks Otkritie and Gazprombank ($59m and $47m, respectively). As for the banking sector on the whole, the amount of private customers’ foreign currency savings within the system dropped by $662m in September.

Ruble deposits also kept decreasing in volume, with most of private savings withdrawn also from Sberbank (-RUR 46bn) and VTB (-RUR 30bn).