OREANDA-NEWS The freezing of the foreign exchange part of the reserves of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation will lead to the fact that the central banks of other countries will want to rethink the need to place reserves in dollars and euros, TASS writes with reference to the Financial Stability Review prepared by the Bank of Russia. According to him, the role of the US dollar and the euro as reserve assets may decline against the backdrop of increased demand for gold.

"The precedent of freezing the currency part of the Bank of Russia's gold and foreign exchange reserves will lead to the fact that central banks (primarily in Asia and the Middle East) will rethink the risks of placing their reserves in US dollars and euros," the statement said.

It is also noted that the establishment of negative interest rates on foreign currency deposits for legal entities will help accelerate the devaluation of the Russian banking sector. At the same time, the process of devaluation of liabilities of the Russian banking sector has already accelerated against the backdrop of an outflow of customer funds from foreign currency accounts.

The freezing of Russian assets was previously announced by the authorities of several European countries. In particular, France froze the assets of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation for a total of €22 billion, and the funds of individuals from Russia in the amount of €150 billion were also frozen in the country. The Czech authorities froze the property of Russian businessmen for hundreds of millions of crowns. Italy froze the assets of Russian oligarchs included in the EU sanctions list in the amount of more than €800 million 5 billion).