Foreign banks have exposures to Russia of $121.5 billion

Foreign banks have exposures, such as loans and debt securities, to Russia of US$121.5 billion (about 108 billion euros), according to statistical figures from the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) at the end of September.

The BIS, which is based in the Swiss city of Basel and assists central banks around the world, does not have figures for individual banks, but it does have figures for the total exposure of banks in a country.

The amount of foreign banks’ total exposure to Russia is reduced to nearly $105 billion (€93.75 billion) if almost $10.7 billion (€9.6 billion) in loans to Russian banks secured outside Russia are subtracted.

For example, if a US bank extends a loan to a subsidiary of a Russian oil company in Mexico and the loan is guaranteed by the parent company of the US bank, the transaction is in the BIS statistics a loan from Russian banks in Mexico and a loan from Russian banks in the United States.

Of the US$121.5 billion, just over US$54 billion are local positions in local currency, mostly from banks in Austria, France, Italy and the United States.

The Italian and French banks have an exposure in Russia of slightly more than US$25,000 million (about 22,300 million euros) each, the Austrians of some US$17,500 million (15,625 million euros), the Americans of US$14,600 million ( 13,000 million euros), the Japanese of more than US$ 9,500 million (about 8,500 million euros), the Germans of US$ 8,000 million (about 7,100 million euros) and the Dutch of almost US$ 6,600 million (5,900 million euros). euros).

Foreign banks have on their balance sheets an exposure to banks in Russia of just over US$11.1 billion (10 billion euros).

Italian and American banks each have exposures of more than $2 billion to banks in Russia, according to BIS figures.

The European Central Bank (ECB) considered this Monday that the Austrian bank Sberbank Europe and its two subsidiaries in the banking union, in Croatia and in Slovenia, are bankrupt or very likely to go bankrupt due to lack of liquidity after the flight of deposits .

The Single Resolution Board (SRB) intervened the European subsidiaries of the Russian bank Sberbank in Austria, Croatia and Slovenia after declaring that they are bankrupt.

The Austrian bank Sberbank Europe is fully owned by the Russian public bank Public Joint-Stock Company Sberbank of Russia, whose largest shareholder is the Russian Federation (50% plus one of the voting shares).

The European Union (EU), the United States, Japan and other G7 partners have blocked some Russian banks from the Swift international payment system and frozen the reserves of the Russian Central Bank.

Typical processing time for Russia through Swift is two hours and five minutes, compared to 39 minutes for Europe and 12 minutes for the United States, due to capital controls.

In 2020, Russia sent 143 million messages through Swift and received 135 million, which is more than a million messages sent or received per business day.