Russians have suffered losses due to panic demand for cash, says Sberbank

The deputy chairman of Sberbank, Stanislav Kuznetsov, said that in the past two days the population of Russia has suffered significant losses due to panic demand for cash and currency conversion.

According to him, in recent days people have been actively withdrawing rubles from their accounts in Sberbank and changing them for dollars at a high rate. Also, an increase in the financial losses of Russians has contributed to the spread of rumors that Sberbank may stop Visa and MasterCard services, as well as introduce limits on cash withdrawals.

"People, unfortunately, committed very serious errors. For example, the night before, many people withdrew cash and immediately converted it into dollars at the rate of 70 or even 80 rubles to the dollar. Can you imagine how frustrated they were today, when they saw a rate of 60. Such an approach is not very constructive," TASS quoted him.

According to Kuznetsov, in a crisis and with volatility on the market it is unwise to take all the cash from bank accounts at the same time. He stressed that "this is up to our clients, and we are obliged to fully meet all our customers demands."