Russian banks have significantly reduced stocks of precious metals. On April 1, the remains in the accounts that reflect such assets amounted to 227.3 billion rubles – this is at least since August 2019. In February-March, the volume of investments in precious metals decreased by 20.2 billion (17.2%), but in terms of physical gold, reserves decreased much more noticeable, writes RBC.
Given the prices for affinated gold, according to RBC calculations, on April 1, 43.8 tons of this metal were stored in banks.
In two months, the remains decreased by 11.4 tons (minus 20.7%) – by 10.8 tons in February and 0.6 tons in March.
The remains of gold on the balance sheets have sharply decreased due to the activation of export operations, RBC explained in large banks. According to the representative of the Socialist Republic, in early February, market participants could still freely export metal abroad and “in anticipation of sanctions sold the remains.” In March, according to him, there was no longer a sale of gold abroad.
The indicators could affect the seasonality (reducing the volume of precious metalla to banks from customers) and the return of the Central Bank of Russia to purchases of gold in the domestic market, analysts believe.