US banks seek pragmatic solutions to Russian debt.
After the Treasury Department confirmed that the liquidation of corresponding deposit positions did not violate the sanctions, JPMorgan and Bank of America are said to have now offered to support customers with the exit, reports the Bloomberg news agency.
The banks Barclays and Jefferies had already made corresponding offers in the previous week.
After the Russian invasion of Ukraine, many banks not only withdrew from Russia, but also stopped trading in its assets.
Although lawyers always took the view that a sale was possible despite the sanctions, traders had refused to carry out the relevant transactions.
The responsible authority, OFAC, had already granted a temporary license to trade in Russian assets last month.
The prices of Russian foreign currency bonds have recovered in recent weeks.
The ten-year euro government bond is trading at 39 percent of the nominal value, compared to 16 percent at the end of June.
Meanwhile, the Moscow Stock Exchange allows foreign investors who have not imposed sanctions on Russia to trade debt securities there again.
This does not apply to investors from countries classified as unfriendly by the Putin administration, such as the EU, Japan or Canada, and thus only affects around 10 percent of investments.
Big investors from “friendly” countries include Saudi Prince Alwalid Bin Talal, who had more than $500 million invested in Russian companies at the time of the invasion, Bloomberg writes.
Russia is currently working on breaking away from the so-called unfriendly countries.
For example, Putin recently issued decrees barring some foreign banks and energy companies from divesting their branches in Russia.
In addition, Russian lenders whose foreign accounts are frozen have been allowed to stop doing business with customers from those countries.
The Russian sovereign wealth fund can now also invest in Chinese, Indian or Turkish currencies.
Politicians are now considering proposals to tap domestic sources of capital, for example through “charity bonds”.
Businesses should be given incentives to stop using "toxic" currencies, and state-owned companies should exchange their currency reserves for currencies of "friendly" countries, writes Bloomberg.