Russia’s Largest Bank Sberbank Looks to Launch Stablecoin under New Crypto Law

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by Bhushan Akolkar · 3 min read
Russia’s Largest Bank Sberbank Looks to Launch Stablecoin under New Crypto Law
Photo: Depositphotos

The state-owned Sberbank’s stablecoin will be functional on its native blockchain built using the Hyperledger Fabric infrastructure. This blockchain will facilitate trade finance transactions involving the exchanging letters of credit.

Russia’s largest banking institution Sberbank is mulling out options to launch its own stablecoin, a digital currency backed by real-world assets. As per reports, the new stable coin will work on Sberbank’s own blockchain platform built on the Hyperledger Network. As per the bank representatives, the Sberbank blockchain will facilitate trade finance transactions. Furthermore, its major focus will be on transactions involving the exchanging letters of credit.

Sergey Popov, director of state-owned Sberbank’s transaction business, said that the new stablecoin will be pegged 1-1 to the Russian ruble. Initially, the Sberbank also plans to limit the stablecoin use only to buy digital assets as per local new publication Vedomosti.

Just a week or two back, Russia rolled out its digital assets law dubbed “On Digital Financial Assets” (DFA) which will come into force by January 2021. Hence, for the time being, Sberbank is just working out options with the stablecoin. Once the crypto law comes into action, Sberbank will join hands with its partners and proceed ahead with the project.

On July 31, Russian President Vladimir Putin himself signed on two DFA bills to bring them into law. However, this bill prohibits Russians from conducting transactions in Bitcoin and other digital currencies.

Speaking on this matter, Popov said:

“We probably may issue a stablecoin on the basis of the law that has been adopted recently. As we can peg this stablecoin to the ruble, this token could become a basis or an instrument for settlements involving other digital financial assets.”

Popov added that the stablecoin, which is currently under consideration, will facilitate settlements involving digital and virtual financial assets.

Stablecoin from Sberbank Will Ensure Faster Payments and Settlements

Sberbank is looking to launch its Hyperledger-based blockchain platform by Q3 2020. A stablecoin will be a logical component of this blockchain platform facilitating faster payments and settlements.

Although the blockchain system will use Hyperledger’s Fabric blockchain framework, the node hosting will happen in Sberbank’s own cloud computing service SberCloud. Sberbank said that the system will remain open for any company to join and host a node. Speaking to CoinDesk, Sberbank’s deputy chair Anatoly Popov said:

“Any company will be able to use smart contracts created by Sberbank right away or create their own. Payments via smart contracts go through automatically and the vendors receive funds in a matter of seconds.”

Moreover, trade finance will be just one such potential use case for the platform. Sberbank also plans to add some of its existing service to its blockchain network.

You can find more news from the blockchain industry following the link.

The illustrations were provided by Depositphotos.com

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