The largest bank in Russia completes the first digital asset transaction on its blockchain platform

Sberbank, Russia’s largest bank and the government’s primary owner, has completed the first digital financial asset transaction on its own blockchain-based platform.

Sberbank announced today that it had launched the smart contract-based blockchain platform and completed the first transaction with its subsidiary, SberFactoring, by executing a 1 billion rouble (about $15 million) issue with a three-month maturity.

“The launch of the platform and our obtaining the status of an operator is the result of the teamwork of many divisions of our bank in close cooperation with the Bank of Russia,” Anatoly Popov, deputy chairman of the board of Sberbank, said in the announcement.

Popov went on to claim that Sberbank’s blockchain laboratory, which was created in 2018, is now translating its research into industrial business solutions. “We feel our platform has good possibilities because the digital format greatly speeds up and simplifies the process of issuing financial instruments and lowers the entry threshold,” he explained.

Sberbank’s blockchain platform is now in pilot mode for a small number of users, but it will soon be available to all corporate clients of the bank.

In the future, the bank intends to launch additional forms of financial assets on its platform.

VTB Factoring, a subsidiary of Russia’s second-largest bank, completed its first cash-backed digital financial asset transaction last month in collaboration with the fintech firm Lighthouse.