"NCC has decided to fulfill obligations to trading participants and their clients to return US dollars and euros, available after partial blocking of currency collateral, by converting the said currency into Russian rubles," the trading floor said in a statement.
Approximately 5% of currency funds were blocked, estimated "Tsifra Broker". The company, along with other major brokers, including Raiffeisenbank's subsidiary, Finam and BKS, announced on June 13 that it was suspending the withdrawal of dollars and euros from accounts, which, however, was soon resumed.
A week later, the exchange had problems with the withdrawal of Chinese yuan, the brokerage company Sinara reported on Friday. Their reason is the sanctions against the exchange and the NCC, Sinara explained, adding that they are introducing temporary restrictions on yuan transactions for their clients. The exchange itself assured that operations with yuan "go on normally" and without delays in debiting and crediting funds.
On June 12, the Moscow Exchange was blacklisted by the U.S. Ministry of Finance with its key settlement structures - NCC and National Settlement Depository (NSD). The next day, trading in the U.S. dollar, euro, and Hong Kong dollar stopped at the exchange, and the Central Bank began setting official rates for OTC market transactions.
De facto, the only foreign currency available for trading remained the Chinese yuan. But yuan trading may soon be stopped, a source close to the Central Bank told Bloomberg. According to him, Chinese banks that provide such transactions are likely to phase out operations with the exchange due to the threat of secondary U.S. sanctions.
