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RUSSIA'S ECONOMY

Sberbank: No excess demand for foreign currency despite ruble’s weakening

Earlier on Thursday the dollar exchange rate surged by 4.59 rubles to 85.99 rubles on the Moscow Exchange, which exceeds the record highs of 2014 by 5.89 rubles

© Egor Aleev/TASS

RUSSIA'S ECONOMY

MOSCOW, January 21. /TASS/. Russia’s top lender Sberbank does not see an excess of demand for foreign currency among clients despite the ruble’s weakening, a representative of the bank’s press service told TASS on Thursday.

"At the moment we don’t see an excess of demand for foreign currency on the part of our clients. Sberbank is ready to provide required volume of supply to its clients in a timely manner with no loss in quality of service," the source said.

VTB24 (a retail banking arm of Russia's second-biggest lender VTB) also sees no feverish demand for foreign currency due to the ruble’s plummeting among its clients, a representative of the bank’s press service told TASS on Thursday.

"There are no departures from standard volumes of purchases or sales of exchange in place. There is no excitement due to the changing exchange rate of the ruble in our offices and we’re ready to fully satisfy any demand for currency exchange transactions from our clients," the source said.

Earlier on Thursday the dollar exchange rate surged by 4.59 rubles to 85.99 rubles on the Moscow Exchange, which exceeds the record highs of 2014 by 5.89 rubles. The dollar was only higher before the ruble was denominated in 1998. As of December 30, 1997 the dollar equaled 5,960 rubles at the exchange rate of the Central Bank of Russia. The euro exchange rate soared by 5.06 rubles to 93.7 rubles.

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