17% of individuals hold cash in Chinese currency, and 8% in European currency. These are the results of Finam’s study, which Izvestia has. A year after the imposition of sanctions, the yuan displaced the euro from the top three.
The ruble still remains in the first place for keeping savings in cash – it is chosen by just over a third of Russians, or 34.9%, follows from the survey. The second line is occupied by the US dollar, in which 28.3% of citizens keep their savings.
After the yuan, in fourth and fifth positions are the Hong Kong dollar (6.9%) and the Swiss franc (1.9%). The remaining 1.3% comes from cash from other countries.
Major brokerage and credit organizations have confirmed the popularity of the Chinese currency. Indeed, last year there was an unprecedented demand for the yuan in the market, emphasized the company “Tsifra Broker”. They explained that the main reason was the geopolitical crisis that broke out at the beginning of 2022 and the sanctions confrontation. This hit hard on the reputation of the main foreign currencies, which were traditionally used in the Russian Federation to save money.
“Chinese” has become a convenient alternative for savings products in classical currencies, VTB noted. They emphasized: for example, the number of such deposits has grown by 26% since November 2022 alone, and their volume in February is a multiple of the end of autumn. During the year, over 10,000 retail clients opened such deposits.
Last year’s restrictions left few alternatives in the savings product line, and the “Chinese” has become a “safe haven,” experts said. At the same time, in their opinion, the potential conflict in Taiwan and trade wars may put pressure on the PRC currency.
