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Russia Sanctions Accelerate Risk to Dollar Dominance 

U.S. and European Union sanctions against Russia threaten to hasten a move away from the dollar that’s been stirring since the global financial crisis.

One place the shift has become evident is Hong Kong, where dollar selling has led the central bank to buy more than $9.5 billion since July 1 to prevent its currency from rallying as the sanctions stoked speculation of an influx of Russian cash. OAO MegaFon, Russia’s second-largest wireless operator, shifted some cash holdings into the city’s dollar. Trading of the Chinese yuan versus the Russian ruble rose to the highest on July 31 since the end of 2010, according to the Moscow Exchange.

While no one’s suggesting the dollar will lose its status as the main currency of business any time soon, its dominance is ebbing. The greenback’s share of global reserves has already shrunk to under 61 percent from more than 72 percent in 2001. The drumbeat has only gotten louder since the financial crisis in 2008, an event that began in the U.S. when subprime-mortgage loans soured, and the largest emerging-market nations including Russia have vowed to conduct more business in their currencies.

“The crisis created a rethink of the dollar-denominated world that we live in,” said Joseph Quinlan, chief market strategist at Bank of America Corp.’s U.S. Trust, which oversees about $380 billion. “This nasty turn between Russia and the West related to sanctions, that can be an accelerator toward a more multicurrency world.”

MegaFon, a Moscow-based company that hasn’t been targeted by the sanctions, is moving funds into the Hong Kong dollar, Chief Financial Officer Gevork Vermishyan said in a phone interview last week. Billionaire Alisher Usmanov’s wireless operator has traditionally kept its foreign cash in U.S. dollars and euros, according to the company.

Wealth Exits

OAO GMK Norilsk Nickel, the world’s largest producer of nickel and palladium, is also keeping some of its cash in the Asian currency, two people with knowledge of the situation said last week, asking not to be identified because the information isn’t public.

The nickel producer keeps its free cash-flow in a variety of currencies and instruments, spokesman Petr Likholitov said last week, declining to elaborate or comment on the use of Hong Kong dollars.

In addition, rich Russians are looking to move funds to banks in Hong Kong, Singapore and Dubai, Danilo Lacmanovic, chief executive officer of Moscow-based Third Rome LLC, which manages $400 million on behalf of high net-worth individuals, said in a phone interview yesterday.

Dollar Trials

Since the U.S. currency replaced gold as the bedrock of the financial system after World War II, the greenback has weathered numerous crises. It emerged from the collapse of the Bretton Woods system in 1971, endured the introduction of the euro almost three decades later and maintained its status as a haven currency even when the 2008 collapse spread from Wall Street to economies around the world.

The Federal Reserve’s unprecedented monetary stimulus to stem that crisis channeled cash into the economy through debt purchases, leading nations including Brazil and Germany to claim the U.S. was debasing its currency.

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