JPMorgan, the US-based investment bank, said on Monday that Russia would be excluded from all its fixed-income indexes on March 31. According to a statement quoted by Reuters, the manoeuvre was decided by the bank after Russia was placed on an index watch in March following sanctions imposed by the United States.
JPMorgan surveyed investors on the possibility of including Russia's local and hard currency debt in its benchmarks over the weekend. In a poll conducted on 'Survey Monkey' seen by Reuters, Wall Street bank asked whether sovereign and corporate bonds and securities denominated in hard currency and roubles should be retained or removed.
Those anticipating that securities will be removed are asked about their preferred timing, at the end of March or the end of April. The bank runs a family of hard-currency sovereign indexes called EMBI, as well as a corporate debt index called CEMBI. In addition, there is the GBI-EM benchmark for local debt in emerging currencies and JESG, which is based on environmental, social and governance factors.
Based on bank information, assets worth $842 billion are benchmarked against those indexes. The EMBIG Diversified index of the bank weights Russia at 0.89% and the ESG version has an even higher weighted rating of 1.03%. In addition, it is being investigated whether or not the debt from Russian ally Belarus should be removed from JPMorgan's ESG index series.
PayPal's Services Suspension
On Saturday, PayPal confirmed that it had suspended its payment services in Russia amid the invasion of Ukraine. Dan Schulman, the President and Chief Executive Officer of PayPal, said that the tragedy in Ukraine has been devastating for all.
PayPal joins a list of other leading financial firms seizing operations in Russia. According to Schulman, PayPal stands with the people of Ukraine. For its employees in Russia, the company is providing all possible support.
