Krinzh review of SPIEF-2023, as well as the continuation of the story with the ban on trading on foreign exchanges
The strangest thing that happened at the St. Petersburg Economic Forum
Last week, the international economic forum SPIEF was held in St. Petersburg. Here is a short summary of cringe events from this event:
At the stand of the Siberian Federal District, some guys of impressive build arranged cosplay of paratroopers: they tore a heating pad and a tennis ball to the Shaman’s song “I’m Russian”.
The public was presented neuro-Zhirinovsky. Vladimir Volfovich came out somehow bluish, I still don’t understand – is this an allusion to the Night King from Game of Thrones, or to the classic Fantomas?
Stand “Made in Russia” was represented by Muses of export – IT, petrochemical, agricultural, mechanical engineering, and medicine.
German Gref said that after the change of foreign catering brands to Russian ones, the revenue of the respective chains sank significantly: the transformation of McDuck into Vkusno i Tochka led to a drop in sales by 18%, and Starbucks in Stars Coffee from Timati – a duck and in general by 76%. True, Timati himself hurried after this declarethat “you are all lying”, and in fact sales increased by 5%. Apparently, for some reason, visitors simply abruptly stopped paying there with Sberbank cards and carried cash to the coffee shop?
One of the participants banned from the forum for handing out business cards with the inscription “Looking for a husband” and a phone number. This is level 80 newtorking, my respect!
At the session of the Central Bank on financial literacy no one came. Apparently, SPIEF participants already consider themselves quite financially literate. On the other hand: someone bought tickets to the forum for 1.2 million rubles apiece – so it might be worth attending this very session from the Central Bank …
Brokerage accounts in the Russian Federation will remain uninsured
State Duma rejected a bill to insure against the bankruptcy of a broker the money of investors deposited in IIA. As the deputies said, neither the Central Bank nor the brokers really needed this idea.
It is a pity, however, that they forgot to ask the investors themselves. It seems to me that this initiative could seem worthy of attention to them …
The Central Bank confirmed the ban on trading securities on foreign accounts for Russians
Last week, Konstantin Asabin (a lawyer from Alfa Capital) and I published an article that, it turns out, from March 3, 2023, Russian citizens are essentially prohibited from buying or selling any securities on foreign brokerage accounts without obtaining permission from a special commission.
After the publication of the material, I read hundreds of comments that I can’t read Russian, the presidential decrees were not about that at all, and I myself am a panic-monger among Russian investors paid by enemies (I wrote more about different positions on this issue here).
And the guys from Forbes just went for comments to the Central Bank, and they answered in the style of “yes, of course, everything is prohibited, what are we talking about!”. A little later, the InvestFuture team also requested clarification from the Bank of Russia – and he answered them: 1) trading securities on foreign accounts without the permission of the government commission is really it is forbidden; and 2) if the investor cannot prove that the counterparty to the transaction on the foreign exchange was a friendly person, then a priori will be consideredthat the counterparty was unfriendly. Hello to everyone who wrote about the inviolable presumption of innocence under the Code of Administrative Offenses and “yes, they simply cannot prove it!”.
But in general, I would not be surprised if the Central Bank changes its shoes several times in the process and changes interpretations back and forth to the opposite.
A couple of news, so to speak, money circulation
From June 20 start acting new tariffs of Raiffeisen Bank, according to which individuals will be charged 50% of the receipts of dollars from other banks. But there is good news: the commission cannot exceed $500. That is, the bank, as it were, says: there is nothing here with our rogue transfers of a piece of bucks to occupy our time!
Bank of China stopped carry out transfers in yuan from Russian banks to banks in the USA and European countries. So much for “cheap and convenient transfers in a friendly currency at Interactive Brokers”…
Numbers cynically want to be comfortable
CB plans make commissions for paying with a digital ruble in all stores several times lower than with bank cards: now businesses pay an average of 2.5% for card acquiring (payments using the SBP fast payment system are about 0.7%), and for accepting e -rubles can be paid only 0.3%. In general, you can compete with the Central Bank in its field of FIG: if necessary, it will simply dump prices.
So, you see, everything will gradually change to a convenient and cheap digital ruble. And the state is pleased: on the one hand, additional direct income; on the other hand, it is much more convenient to monitor any transactions in the digital ruble directly, without requesting information from banks!
Deregistration through the State Services (it’s a trap)
On public services appeared section on interaction with the military registration and enlistment offices. With it, you can, among other things, apply for removal from military registration. My regular co-author on the topic, Kirill Korshunov from the KIAP Law Office, comments:
Sounds good, but it’s too early to rejoice. You still can’t do without a trip to the military registration and enlistment office. Based on the results of consideration of this application, the military commissar makes a preliminary decision, for which he has 7 working days. If the preliminary decision is positive, then the citizen is summoned to the military enlistment office to complete all the formalities. And only after appearing at the military registration and enlistment office and checking the documents, he is already removed from the register for real.
So, if you are abroad and decide to deregister through the State Services, stock up on a representative in Russia who can come to the military registration and enlistment office with all the documents.
Kirill Korshunov
News about Binance
Good news about Binance: court Not allowed The US Securities Commission (SEC) to freeze the assets of the state division of the Binance.US exchange. “We are not ready to accept the death sentence eight days after the start of our case,” the representative of Binance complained to the judge, and he, apparently, shed a tear and took pity.
Bad news about Binance: crypto exchange hit under investigation in France for money laundering. In addition to everything, the exchange itself also announced that it will not continue to try to legalize in the Netherlands and Cyprus.
In general, it seems that regulators in all countries have decided that the last chances are running out in order to have time to jump into the outgoing train of tearing the brainchild of Changpeng Zhao.
BlackRock wants to make a true fund with Bitcoins inside
For years, no one could get the SEC to give its consent to issuing a real bitcoin ETF. Before that, it was possible to bring to the exchange only either a crooked craft from Grayscale, which tracked the dynamics of Bitcoin very approximately, or an ETF, inside of which there are Bitcoin futures, and not the cryptocoin itself.
Well, here it is – last week to enter this river tried BlackRock is a real giant on the scale of the global financial markets. It will be interesting if his application is actually granted in the end.
In general, it’s funny that Blackrock takes this step at about the moment when all the large and respected financial institutions seem to shy away from the crypt like from fire (looking at all these courts on Eftiks, Binances and other Coinbases).
Good news of the week
The Ministry of Finance said that double taxation agreements with unfriendly countries will not cancel completely – only some of its provisions will be banned. As a result, ordinary citizens will not have to pay the same taxes twice both in Russia and in foreign countries. And this is good!
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