Another Russian broker will leave clients without currency

Russian brokers continue to reject “unfriendly” currencies. ITinvest intends to forcibly exchange dollars and euros in its clients’ accounts for rubles from June 13, the company said in a statement.

At the same time, the broker will give clients the option to refuse conversion by offering them to sign “risk acceptance statements”. You can do this in your personal account until June 9, 2023 inclusive, according to the company’s announcement.

At the same time, from May 26, ITinvest introduces a commission for storing “unfriendly” currency on a brokerage account in the amount of 12% per annum. There will be no additional fee for forced currency conversion, the broker notes.

In addition, from June 14, the company introduces a commission for transactions in dollars, euros, pounds sterling and Swiss francs, a commission of 2% of the transaction amount will be charged. When replenishing your account in these currencies, the broker will also deduct 1.5% of the top-up amount.

Since last year, Russian brokers have been forcibly exchanging Western currencies in their clients’ accounts for rubles. In autumn, one of the largest players on the financial market, Aton, did it. However, in this case, the forced conversion only applied to customers with more than $20,000 in their account.

In January, the Central Bank sent recommendations to brokers to warn clients against forced currency conversion. The regulator called for defining the procedure for such transactions in contracts with customers.

Subsequently, some financial companies began to foresee the possibility of forced conversion in contracts. In addition, some market players decided to significantly tighten the rules for storing and withdrawing currency from accounts. For example, from April 3, the BCS set the bar for the minimum transfer of currency to external banks at USD 50,000 and EUR 50,000. The same limits were introduced by other brokerage firms, e.g. Finam, ITInvest, Newton Investments (formerly GPB Investments).

After the start of the war in Ukraine, in the USA, Great Britain and EU countries introduced blocking sanctions against most of the largest Russian banks, which often include the largest brokers. As a result, they were cut off from transactions in dollars, euros and pounds.

As a result, by the beginning of 2022, half of foreign currency payments in Russia were made by Raiffeisenbank. It was because of his policies that brokers were forced to tighten their limits: an Austrian credit institution raised the minimum threshold for currency transfers for legal entities to USD 50,000.