Nearly $5 billion in interest was generated last year, the company has revealed
Major EU clearinghouse Euroclear has revealed that it accrued almost $5 billion in profit from frozen Russian assets last year.
In its financial results for 2023 published on Thursday, the Belgium-based company reported that net interest earnings amounted to €5.5 billion ($5.9 billion), of which €4.4 billion “relate to interests linked to Russian sanctions.”
The company explained that the profits were driven by factors such as the prevailing interest rates and the amount of cash balances that Euroclear is required to invest.
It’s estimated that the clearing house is holding €196.6 billion (nearly $220 billion) worth of Russian assets, the vast majority of which belong to the country’s central bank. In total, the EU has frozen €207 billion (just over $231 billion) of Russian assets and reserves since the beginning of the Ukraine conflict.
EU leaders have repeatedly called for using the funds “to rebuild Ukraine” and agreed last year to develop a scheme to use the windfall profits generated by the funds. However, a number of officials, including ECB President Christine Lagarde, have warned that a windfall tax could undermine the euro and cause concern among those keeping reserves in the currency.
Underscoring the persisting uncertainties over attempts to implement profit-siphoning schemes, Euroclear said that it “considers it necessary to separate the estimated sanction-related earnings from the underlying financial results when assessing the company’s performance and resources.”
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