MSCI could exclude Russia from emerging markets index

Around $1.4 trillion are benchmarked against MSCIEF

Index provider MSCI said it may exclude Russia from its emerging markets benchmark if authorities introduced capital or foreign exchange controls.

Around $1.4 trillion are benchmarked against MSCI's Emerging Markets share index (MSCIEF), which are used by many investment funds to determine their weightings.

"The introduction of restrictive measures, such as capital or foreign exchange controls, which may lead to a material deterioration of Russian equity market accessibility, may lead to the exclusion of the MSCI Russia Index from the MSCI Emerging Markets Index and a reclassification proposal of such market to Standalone Market status," the index provider said in a statement.