Due to cold weather, gas reserves in European storage facilities have dropped to almost 26%, and the US authorities are considering tougher anti-Russian sanctions – these and other important news for Monday morning, April 4, in our daily review.

Due to the cold weather, European countries have again started to spend gas reserves from their underground storage facilities (UGS). As of April 2, they had fallen to 26.29%, Interfax reports, citing data from Gas Infrastructure Europe. At the end of last month, from March 22 to March 30, reserves in UGS showed a gain.

The US authorities are considering toughening anti-Russian sanctions, The Washington Post reported citing sources. According to them, the final decision has not been made yet. It is not known what the new sanctions will include. The publication admits that Washington may impose sanctions on sectors of the Russian economy, which “have not yet been hit”. We are talking, in particular, about the mining industry and transportation. They may also expand sanctions against the Russian financial sector.

Also new sanctions are being prepared in the EU. Representatives of the EU countries plan to discuss new anti-Russian sanctions on Wednesday, April 6, a source told the Financial Times. According to the newspaper, they will talk about personal restrictions, a ban on the use of ports, export restrictions and an embargo on energy resources (coal, oil or gas).

Borrowers have started complaining about difficulties in obtaining credit vacations, according to Kommersant. According to the newspaper’s calculations, banks reject 30-50% of applications. Credit institutions note that applications do not meet the requirements of the program, applicants already have credit vacations or overdue loans. Experts believe it is necessary to soften the conditions by law.

Russian banks in the last week of March issued the maximum since June 2021 the number of loans under the program of preferential mortgage – 12,800 mortgage loans for a total of 32.1 billion rubles. About it writes “Kommersant”. The share of approved loan applications for this period amounted to 62.7%, the most loans issued by Sberbank (MCX:SBER) – 8,400 for 20.9 billion rubles.