Tinkoff Investments to seek Belgian license to transfer frozen client assets from sanctioned NSD

MOSCOW. Oct 17 (Interfax) - Tinkoff Investments has notified its clients that it intends to soon ask the Belgian Finance Ministry for a license that will enable it to transfer assets from Russia's National Settlement Depository (NSD), which is subject to sanctions, to other safe holding locations.

The NSD, after agreement with Euroclear and external European consultants, sent requests for general licenses to the finance ministries of Belgium and Luxembourg in September to unblock the assets of all investors not subject to sanctions and expects to receive a general permit in October.

Brokers in the Club for Protection of Investors' Rights, which includes more than 100 companies, announced plans to prepare requests for individual licenses to unfreeze assets in case the NSD does not receive a response from European regulators by November 1.

Tinkoff Investments plans to send its own request regardless in order to unfreeze assets frozen in NSD accounts at Euroclear so that its clients who have not been hit by sanctions can again access their securities and money in the form of dividends, coupons and bond redemption payments.

The company said the request to the Belgian ministry might be sent in a few weeks.

The European Union's last sanctions package said that settlements with frozen assets must be completed by January 7, 2023 if permission is granted. Tinkoff Investments said that the individual deadline for unfreezing its clients' assets should be stated in the license.

The company said it meets all the necessary criteria set by the European regulator. The whole process will be absolutely free of charge for its clients, the company said.

The situation with Swiss francs, the freezing of which is not related to the freezing of assets in NSD accounts at Euroclear, is different because the payments of the National Clearing Center's (NCC) correspondent bank, Gazprombank (Switzerland, are not being processed by intermediary banks. Tinkoff Investments is continuing to work with the NCC to return clients' Swiss francs, the company said.

There is a possibility that frozen assets can be transferred to Tinkoff Investments from another Russian depository, but the company said it cannot guarantee that it will get a license to unfreeze these assets.