The USA and the EU wanted to drain Russian President Vladimir Putin (70) financially and turn the oligarchs against him. However, the sanctions do not have the desired effect. For this reason, they want to cut the money supply to Putin with a new package of sanctions.
This time, the sanctions hit previously donated financial institutions such as Russian bank Tinkoff. But the EU does not seem to have taken the digital bank into account. This already has a ready-made backdoor. Tinkoff informs its customers via Telegram that “solutions are being developed for various scenarios.”
EU mockery
The instructions on the bank’s Telegram channel are like a mockery of the EU. “We are transferring assets to a new, unapproved custodian,” the bank wrote to its 300,000 subscribers. Tinkoff is temporarily suspending trading in foreign securities so that client funds cannot be blocked by then.
The bank wants to “take all necessary measures for the transfer” in the next one to three weeks. This can be done as soon as possible because preparations were made for this scenario months in advance.
After the outbreak of war, Tinkoff Bank made headlines, especially with its founder and owner, Oleg Tinkow (55). The Russian oligarch has repeatedly criticized Putin’s attack on Ukraine. It is said that in May 2022, Tinkov was forced to sell his shares at an absurd price to Vladimir Potantin (62), a friend of Putin’s. Tinkov announced that he renounced his Russian citizenship at the end of October 2022. He does not want to be associated with a fascist state.
More than 16 million customers
For Tinkoff customers, trading on the Hong Kong stock exchange is also temporarily restricted due to regulations. After the transfer of assets, Russian customers should be able to trade foreign securities again without any worries. And there’s plenty of that. Tinkoff Bank has more than 16 million customers and is the third largest bank in Russia.
The new sanctions are likely to affect Rosbank and Alfa Bank as well. Alfa Bank is Russia’s largest private bank and has also moved large volumes of client funds since the beginning of the war.
Hunt for oligarch wealth
Along with Tinkoff Bank, all three financial institutions can be excluded from Swift and hence international payment transactions. There are already seven Russian banks on this list. If more banks are added to the list, it will become more difficult for Russia to transfer money across the border.
In the new sanctions package, the EU also wants to intensify the hunt for the assets of the oligarchs on the sanctions list. Russian financial assets worth CHF 7.5 billion in Switzerland were frozen at the end of last year. According to estimates, there are about 200 billion Russian funds in Switzerland. However, it is possible that the vast majority of them belong to people who are not on the sanctions list.
Source :Blick
I’m Tim David and I work as an author for 24 Instant News, covering the Market section. With a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism, my mission is to provide accurate, timely and insightful news coverage that helps our readers stay informed about the latest trends in the market. My writing style is focused on making complex economic topics easy to understand for everyone.
