UrBC, Yekaterinburg, November 20, 2018. The Ural Bank for Reconstruction & Development (UBRD) now offers its business customers an opportunity to set up a yuan deposit at any of its branches that works with legal entities. The annual interest rate comes to up to 3% a year, with the shortest deposit period set at five days,’ the bank’s press service reports.

The bank believes getting away from the dollar dependence is currently one of the national market’s key financial trends. Both the government and the business are drifting away from the USD. Companies now keep their funds in the national currencies of the countries they are doing business with; it is now easy to pay your contractors in the currency of the country they are based in.

The same is true of Russia’s Central Bank. According to the bank’s latest report on the management of gold and foreign currency assets, the Central Bank kept working to reduce the share of the first-world currencies and to increase the share of the Chinese yuan and gold for twelve months between March 31, 2017 and now. The yuan investments actually proved the most profitable reserve currency ones.

Head of VEB Igor Shuvalov does not think it improbable that Russia and China might reach an agreement on doing their business settlements in their national currencies before the end of the year; this is also expected to boost the demand for the Chinese yuan.