Credit Bank of Moscow receives license to export gold

MOSCOW. May 16 (Interfax) - Credit Bank of Moscow (MKB) has received a general license from the Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation to export gold bullion, the bank said in the Fedresurs unified federal register of important information on legal entities and individual entrepreneurs.

The license is valid until April 25, 2023.

MKB has a license from the Central Bank of Russia (CBR) to attract deposits and place precious metals, as well as conduct other operations with precious metals, dated May 6, 2016. However, the bank announced the launch of a new business area for working with precious metals, at the first stage with investment and commemorative coins, only in February 2021. MKB planned to expand this area further by launching operations on depersonalized metal accounts and operations with physical gold.

"Credit Bank of Moscow has a dedicated area for the development of transactions with precious metals. We are monitoring the main trends in the financial market, and we are assessing the prospects for the development of our business, including the direction of precious metals. MKB has received a general license for the export of gold bullion and is considering potentially interesting opportunities for carrying out transactions with physical gold," the bank's press service told Interfax.

Russian gold miners traditionally sell gold to commercial banks that can export it or resell it domestically. In 2020-2021, the bulk of the mined metal was exported abroad. However, now that several banks, major players in the precious metals market, have come under sanctions, the export channel has been closed for them, and the liquidity of the gold market has decreased significantly. Amid this, the CBR, which practically did not replenish gold reserves for two years, has decided to resume purchases.

In February 2022, the United States introduced restrictive measures against MKB in terms of attracting debt and equity financing from United States' investors, though they are not blocking sanctions. In April, MKB was included in the UK sanctions list.

According to the results of 2021, MKB, controlled by the Rossium concern, ranked 7th in terms of assets in the Interfax-100 ranking prepared by the Interfax Center for Economic Analysis.