Sanctions and Currencies in Global Credit

This paper studies the effect of financial sanctions on the dominance of the US dollar in global credit markets. In the aftermath of the invasion of Crimea in 2014, sanctions imposed by both the US and the EU restricted the provision of financial services to Russian firms. We document how, between 2014 and 2021, the share of global cross-border credit to Russia denominated in US dollars declined from 65% to 25%, while the share denominated in euros rose from 20% to 45%. Relying on confidential bank-level data covering the universe of global banks located in the UK, we show that this shift was driven by banks previously lending to Russia in US dollars, and that banks shifted to euro lending to Russia regardless of whether their ultimate owner was based in a sanctioning jurisdiction or not. We argue that this euroisation relates to an increase in the relative “settlement risk” of US dollar claims, in the context of US extra-territorial sanctions targeting the dollar payment system. We rationalise our findings in a three-country model with financial intermediaries, where sanctions are introduced as both jurisdiction and currency-circuit specific frictions.