Author: Steven Sahiounie

Bank of Cyprus told its clients from Russia that their accounts will be closed, Forbes has reported Bank of Cyprus has notified its Russian customers that their accounts are set to be closed, Forbes reported on Tuesday, citing Main Partner Trust, a company that provides legal and financial services in Cyprus. The information was reportedly confirmed by an unnamed source in the country’s banking sector. Russian clients of Bank of Cyprus, the nation’s biggest banking institution, began receiving the notifications several days ago, according to Aljona Sakharova, a non-executive director of Main Partner Trust. The letters inform customers that their…

India and Russia have seen massive growth in bilateral trade over the past year, rapidly outpacing the goals initially set by the two countries, according to the Indian Minister of External Affairs. The trade turnover between the nations touched $45 billion between April 2022 and February 2023, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar announced on Monday at a Russia-India business-dialog meeting in New Delhi. Riding largely on oil shipments and fertilizer exports from Russia, the volume of trade has outperformed the countries’ $30-billion-by-2025 target, and well ahead of schedule. It is also more than triple the $13 billion trade turnover registered in 2021. Russia…

Gross Domestic Product is expected to grow 2.8% by 2026, Economy Ministry projects The Russian Ministry of Economic Development expects solid growth of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the next three years, due to a partial resumption of consumer demand against the backdrop of rising wages, business daily RBK reported on Monday. According to the ministry’s data, seen by the news outlet, the economy will grow 1.2% this year, following a decline of 2.1% in 2022. Next year, the GDP growth rate will be 2%, accelerating to 2.8% by 2026. The report also indicated that the growth rate…

Sanctioned businessman Oleg Deripaska says the situation “may well get out of control” One of Russia’s richest men has warned that a surge in global debt and rising interest rates will lead to an imbalance in the global financial system. Sanctioned businessman Oleg Deripaska made the comments on his Telegram channel on Monday. The record debt which global governments, households, financial corporates, and nonfinancial corporates owed exceeded $290 trillion last year, Deripaska claimed. The world’s leverage is at a higher level than pre-global-financial-crisis peaks, yet the demand for debt is likely to continue, according to the billionaire. The volume of…

The price cap on Russian crude oil will remain at its current level of $60 a barrel, Reuters reported on Monday, citing a Group of Seven (G7) official. The decision reportedly comes amid increasing global prices for crude and calls by some nations to lower the price ceiling set by the group in response to Russia’s military operation in Ukraine. The measure that came into effect in December bars Western businesses from providing transportation, insurance and financing to shipments of Russian crude, unless the cargo is bought at or below the set price. The oil price cap has been supported…

Bangladesh will repay a loan for the construction of its first nuclear power plant in Chinese yuan Bangladesh is set to make loan repayments in Chinese yuan for a nuclear power plant being built by Russia, as a way to sidestep Western sanctions, Nikkei Asia reported on Monday. According to the news outlet, the decision follows last week’s high-level talks between the sides, where it was agreed that the bills could be paid in yuan. Bangladesh owes Russia the equivalent of $110 million for the facility, which is still under construction. “Because of the sanctions against Russian banks… we couldn’t…

One reason why ether is appreciating is because of its relative underperformance versus bitcoin so far this year, the exchange said. The price of ether (ETH) has been resilient following the Ethereum blockchain’s Shanghai upgrade (aka Shappela) last week, crypto exchange Coinbase (COIN) said in a research report Friday. The successful upgrade supported better-than-expected ether price action, which Coinbase says could continue through the end of April. The upgrade allows validators to withdraw staked ether that have been locked up and to claim rewards. Within the first 24 hours of withdrawals being enabled, ether’s supply has been limited for a few reasons, the report…

The cryptocurrency seems to be mirroring its performance in first-half 2019, when it more than tripled in valuation after a yearlong bear market. Bitcoin (BTC) is closely following its early 2019 surge, and prices could peak at around $45,000 next month, according to Vetle Lunde, a senior analyst at K33 Research. The largest cryptocurrency by market value has soared 80% this year, beating traditional risky assets, including the tech-heavy Nasdaq index, by a wide margin. The rally comes after a 12-month decline, when prices fell 76% and bottomed out last November. The drop and subsequent recovery are analogous to the…

The price of XRP has dipped by 1% in the past 24 hours, dropping to $0.515094 as the cryptocurrency market as a whole falls by 0.5% over the same period. XRP’s current price means that it has risen by 1.5% in a week and by 35% in the last 30 days, with expectations surrounding the outcome of the Ripple-SEC case helping to boost the altcoin in recent weeks. There has been an expectation for over a month now that this case could be due to end anytime soon, and that the outcome will prove largely favorable to Ripple, enabling it…

The Ethereum price has dropped by a slight 0.4% today, although at $2,092, the leading altcoin remains up by 12.5% in the past week, following the successful rollout of the long-awaited Shanghai upgrade. ETH is also up by 16.5% in the last 30 days and by 75% since the start of 2023, making it one of the best-performing cryptocurrencies in the top 100 (by market cap). And with Shanghai adding to September’s Merge and 2021’s EIP 1559 update, Ethereum has arguably become one of the most fundamentally strong cryptocurrencies in the market, with a tendency to deflate in supply during…