Yandex to shut down Yandex.Investments project in April

MOSCOW. April 6 (Interfax) - The Yandex.Investments financial management services, which Russian Internet group Yandex was developing in partnership with state bank VTB , will be shut down in April, a statement from the project's support service indicated.

"Due to restrictions that our partner VTB has run into, Investments users cannot fully manage their assets. For example, they can no longer trade the securities of foreign companies. Therefore, we decided to close the service," Yandex told Interfax.

The support service said that users will not be able to acquire securities or top up their accounts as of April 11. They will be able to sell shares and withdraw funds at least until April 15.

"After the closure of Yandex.Investments, you will not lose access to your assets. It will be possible to manage them on the website and in the app of VTB," the support service said.

Yandex launched Yandex.Investments in July 2020 based on the VTB Capital Investments platform.

VTB was hit by U.S. and UK sanctions at the end of February 2022. This forced the bank's broker to transfer clients with foreign securities in their accounts to other brokers.

Yandex.Investments warned users at the time that a number of the service's features would not be available because of this.