Bank of Russia May Impose New Restrictions on Non-Ruble Loans - Deputy Governor

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - The Bank of Russia has noted relatively fast rates of de-dollarization in lending processes in the country, the regulator's first deputy governor, Ksenia Yudaeva, said on Wednesday.

"De-dollarization of loans is proceeding fairly quickly. The last figures showed a 7-percent year-on-year drop in foreign currency lending of legal entities, while the figure for personal lending is around zero. If necessary, we can take additional measures," Yudaeva told reporters, asked whether she saw the need for the Central Bank to tighten regulations on foreign currency loans.

Russia has long been seeking to reduce its dependence on the US dollar. On Monday, the Bank of Russia revealed it had reduced the shares of US dollars and euros in its international reserves over the year ending March 31, while increasing the share of Chinese yuan.

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In July, Russia's VTB Bank Chairman Andrey Kostin asked Russian President Vladimir Putin to back the proposals prepared by VTB, which were aimed at de-dollarization and restricting the use of offshore structures.

On September 14, Kostin unveiled his four-part plan to abandon the US dollar in Russia's foreign transactions. The first part is an accelerated transition to export-import transactions with foreign countries in other currencies such as the euro, yuan or ruble. The second part implies the transfer of legal addresses of Russia's largest holdings to Russian jurisdiction, and the third foresees the creation of a Russian depository to place euro bonds. Finally, the fourth part is to start licensing all participants of the stock market in a way that would allow them to work under the same rules.