‘The state of the Russian stock market is certainly alarming; one must admit, however, that there are no fundamental reasons for the panic we’ve been witnessing over the last few days. Whatever is happening now is the emotional reaction to the international events. As a matter of fact, both the country’s economy on the whole and the banking sector in particular are stable enough, which can be proved, among other things, by the rating agencies’ reports,’ METCOMBANK’s CFO Vadim Bambozov said to an UrBC reporter.

‘The market has been in a bit of trouble for over a year now. It is only understandable and predictable that things will only grow increasingly uncertain. What was not expected, though, was that a dramatic panic outbreak would occur all within one week. Nevertheless, most bankers were prepared for something like this, so the settlement operations are moving on as usual, despite the official close of business at the country’s major stock exchanges,’ he added.