Problem of blocked investor assets could last through 2025 - Russian Central Bank

MOSCOW. Jan 31 (Interfax) - The Bank of Russia admits that ongoing work to unblock the assets of Russian investors will continue not only this year, but also into 2025, Olga Shishlyannikova, director of the CBR department of investment financial intermediaries said.

"Unblocking assets is part of the work already done in 2023, and part of the work that moved on to 2024. I think that 2025 could also very well be the year we solve the problems related to blocked investor assets," Shishlyannikova said during the Financial Markets: New Guidelines in a Changing World conference.

In November 2023, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed decree N844 "On additional temporary measures of an economic nature related to the circulation of foreign securities," which creates conditions for the exchange of investor assets blocked in Russia and abroad. It says that non-residents can redeem the blocked foreign securities of Russian investors using funds in their type C accounts. Transactions will be concluded "through bidding." Russian investors will be able to submit applications for the sale of securities, whose total initial value should not exceed 100,000 rubles.

The Ministry of Finance said that, of the 3.6 million Russian citizens whose assets are blocked, approximately 2.5 million have investments of less than 100,000 rubles.

First Deputy Chairman of the Central Bank Vladimir Chistyukhin said in November 2023 that there is no dialogue with foreign regulators on blocked assets, but non-residents are interested in convincing them to grant permission for the exchange.

Russian Deputy Finance Minister Ivan Chebeskov does not rule out a possible second stage of exchange in the future, which would cover investors with larger investments.

Now, authorities are concentrating on retail investors as far as the exchange issue is concerned, but institutional investors have the same problem, he noted.