The Central Bank has identified "workaround schemes" used by friendly investors with Type C accounts.

Some investors from friendly countries are using "circumvention schemes," purchasing Russian assets from unfriendly foreigners at a discount for subsequent resale on the Russian market. Vladimir Chistyukhin, First Deputy Chairman of the Bank of Russia, explained this in an interview with RBC, answering a question about whether it would be possible to unblock friendly investors' assets in Type C accounts.

"The fact is that some friendly non-residents have begun using evasive schemes. They purchase Russian securities from unfriendly investors, bypassing our legal requirements , and then sell them on our market. And such schemes have become widespread. In this case, payments on securities are credited to account C," Chistyukhin noted.

The C-account regime currently does not allow for the free withdrawal of funds, the First Deputy Chairman of the Central Bank recalled. Under the current regime, funds from C-accounts can only be withdrawn with permission from the government commission for the control of foreign investment in Russia. However, funds from C-accounts can be used for mandatory expenses—paying fines, fees, taxes, and also for purchasing OFZ bonds on the primary market (i.e., at Finance Ministry auctions). Foreigners' funds were frozen in response to the blocking of the Central Bank's foreign currency reserves.

Chistyukhin also explained that, as a general rule, securities of friendly non-residents are held in regular depository accounts, not in Type C depository accounts. "Type C depository accounts are opened only for friendly depositories, because we don't know who their clients are. Funds are credited to friendly non-residents, as a general rule, to regular bank accounts. But there are exceptions," he noted. These exceptions include cases of unfair practices, according to the First Deputy Chairman of the Central Bank.

Earlier, Sergei Shvetsov, Chairman of the Moscow Exchange Supervisory Board, spoke of the need to unfreeze assets from friendly investors' Type C accounts. He believes this measure will attract foreign investors to the Russian market. "After all, it's an illusion that we can attract foreign investors with high-quality capital, with large sums, without answering the question: what's next for the Type C accounts?" Shvetsov explained. The lack of even a discussion about the future of Type C accounts for non-residents who are not from unfriendly countries "simply puts an end to any attempts to attract high-quality foreign capital and undermines trust in both the regulator and the system," the Chairman of the Exchange's Supervisory Board emphasized.

The Bank of Russia and the Ministry of Finance did not support this idea. Deputy Finance Minister Ivan Chebeskov noted that the authorities have no plans to use frozen assets from Type S accounts. The Ministry of Finance does not intend to use these securities to "trade off the market." "And the reason here is not likely that we don't want to develop this area of ​​activity, but rather a geopolitical one, not directly related to the financial market," Chebeskov explained. The deputy minister also previously stated that the Ministry of Finance faces the task of attracting 1 trillion rubles from foreign investors to the Russian market.

Elvira Nabiullina, head of the Central Bank of Russia, also spoke out against using assets from Type C accounts . "The introduction of such accounts was a response to the asset freeze imposed on both the Central Bank and individuals, and therefore, in my opinion, it should remain in this form. It's impossible to create any reliable source of investment using this resource," she explained.

The C-account regime was introduced in the spring of 2022 by presidential decree. These accounts are opened for foreigners, and payments on their Russian securities—share dividends, coupons, and bond redemptions—are transferred to them. In addition to mandatory payments, foreigners could also use funds from their C-accounts to buy back foreign securities blocked from Russian investors through the so-called asset swap mechanism. During two rounds of such transactions, foreigners purchased securities from Russians worth a total of 10.64 billion rubles.