"We hope that the waiver of Russian securities transfer fees will send a clear and unambiguous signal to unblock clients' assets," said NSD, which was added to the EU list of sanctions entities in June.

Russian investors lost access to some of securities stored in foreign depositories due to Western sanctions that followed the beginning of what Russia calls "a special military operation" in Ukraine.

Frozen funds' assessments vary. Euroclear clearing house said last month its bank's balance sheet increased by 72 billion euro ($74.2 billion) year-on-year in the first half of 2022 thanks to blocked coupon payments and redemptions accumulated because of sanctions.

(Reporting by Andrey Ostroukh; editing by David Evans)