The St. Petersburg Exchange resumed trading in Russian assets at 11:15 Moscow time, its representative told reporters. In total, the pause lasted more than three hours. Professional participants could not conclude transactions in the negotiated transactions mode (RPS) from 07:50 Moscow time, private investors could not trade from 10:00 Moscow time. The site said it was investigating the cause of the failure.

At the beginning of November, the St. Petersburg Exchange fell under US blocking sanctions. Immediately after receiving information about the restrictions, the platform’s counterparties suspended the processing of orders, which is why the exchange was forced to suspend trading. Trading in a number of Russian securities was resumed the very next day, but transactions with foreign assets were still not carried out. The total amount of client assets on the St. Petersburg Exchange that were blocked due to sanctions is estimated at $3 billion.

Technical failures have previously led to the suspension of trading on the St. Petersburg Exchange. One of these cases occurred at the beginning of February 2022, trading was then suspended for three hours – from 19:00 Moscow time to 22:00 Moscow time. In June, the pause in trading lasted just over an hour, and in September, a glitch caused an almost two-hour halt in trading.

The Moscow Exchange has also suspended trading more than once due to technical problems. Thus, in mid-September 2023, a technical failure led to the longest pause in trading on the derivatives market in the entire history of the Moscow Exchange (not counting the suspension of trading in February-March 2022). The pause lasted four hours.