A recent survey taken by UBS AG, in collaboration with Campden Research, asked Russian business leaders and investors about their portfolio activity and found interesting results regarding the level of trust they have in their domestic currency.
According to the results, approximately 88% of respondents said they do not keep a significant portion of their assets in rubles (RUS). Between 2009 and 2011 the percentage of Russian business leaders who viewed international real estate as a safe haven grew from 32% to 89%. In the same period, trust in the security of domestic cash holdings declined to 5% from 40%, according to the Wall Street Journal’s summary of the findings. Over half of the survey’s respondents rated the UK and Switzerland as primary stores of value, whereas 72% had rated Cyprus as such in 2009.
The data, while indicative of a sign of distrust in domestic value, could be skewed somewhat considering that only those leaders with a personal net worth over $50 million were surveyed. It cannot be correlated with how smaller firms, start-ups, and young entrepreneurs feel about the RUS and has only a minor connection to the views held by the Russian central bank.
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