Russian bank stops customers from closing accounts

"The bank has also increased its tariffs for the transfer of funds by clients to other banks to 15 percent of the amount transferred," said Emil Aliyev, vice president of Globex.

Aliyev said the bank had been forced to act after its total deposits had gone down to 561 million euros ($763 million) on Tuesday from 761 million euros (one-billion-dollars) on September 1.

The Kommersant daily said Globex was Russia's 31st largest bank by capitalization and said the lender could be forced to rely on the same state help give to two other banks hit by the crisis, Svyazbank and Kit Finance.