At the request of the European Central Bank (ECB), European banks have indicated the size of their interests in Russia, and thus what is at stake and what could possibly be lost. ING estimates that risk at approximately 4.9 billion euros, Rabobank estimates several tens of millions. Only ABN Amro says that there is nothing to lose.
According to the latest figures from BIS, the Bank for International Settlements, Dutch banks have $1.5 billion outstanding with Russian residents. For German and French banks, the claims are considerably higher, at 7.4 billion and 8.7 billion dollars respectively. British banks run the highest risk at $13.6 billion, US banks the least at only $366 million. The financial restraint of Russia costs the US little money in that sense.
Russians and Chinese
Bypassing the financial close is difficult, but not impossible. Banks are supervised by central banks and all movements can be followed via Swift, and the United States in particular is keen on a hard financial lockdown. By secretly doing business with Russia, banks risk fines and sanctions from the US.
Russia and China have been working on their own alternative Swift system since 2015, the Russians as a precaution since the Crimean invasion and the Chinese with a view to financial sanctions for clashes around Taiwan. The Russian SPFS system now arranges 20 percent of domestic payments. The network is now limited to countries such as Belarus, Kazakhstan, Turkey and Iran, plus a few dozen banks, including banks in Germany and Switzerland. All together still completely inadequate to replace Swift.
Russia and China are looking at whether the two systems can be connected, so that in the event of international sanctions, the two can continue to trade with each other, out of sight of the US. Sanctions against Russia in the event of an invasion by the Ukraine could even speed up cooperation between Russians and Chinese, Boonstra suspects.
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