Sbercoin (Sberbank cryptocurrency)

2021

Preparing to run Sbercoin

On April 20, 2021, Sberbank announced the upcoming launch of Sbercoin, its digital financial asset (CFA). The blockchain platform, which will form the basis of this tool, is ready and passes the latest approvals with the regulator. This was told to reporters by the deputy chairman of the bank's board Anatoly Popov on the sidelines of the HSE and Sberbank discussion club.

We are working with the regulator on some of the comments that arose during the registration. And we hope that in the near future the platform will be registered, "he said (quote from TASS), adding that Sbercoin is planned to be released in the near future.

Sberbank is preparing for the release of "sbercoin"

According to Popov, Sberbank's blockchain platform will be available to other companies that want to release their own digital financial assets. At each location of the CFA on this site, the bank, in accordance with the rules, will offer the regulator to register the so-called issue prospectus.

In the course of this, it will be determined which assets will be placed and will be offered to participants. This platform can be used not only by the bank, but also by our customers - they can also use it to issue their financial assets, "Popov added.

The ability to release their digital assets and exchange them for other similar ones is allowed by the corresponding law, which entered into force in January 2021. It will be possible to organize the release, purchase and sale, as well as the accounting of digital assets as part of special information systems that must comply with Russian law and be included in the relevant register of the Central Bank.

According to Arseniy Shcheltsin, head of the Digital Platforms ANO, Sbercoin can become a means to manage bonuses and subscriptions within the Sberbank ecosystem - in this case, all bank customers will be able to automatically become owners of the Sbercoin^[1]

Sbercoin Registration

Sberbank has filed an application for the release of its own cryptocurrency - Sbercoin. On January 21, 2021, Anatoly Popov, deputy chairman of the board of the credit organization, told reporters.

Sberbank filed an application with the Bank of Russia for the registration of its blockchain platform in early January, since digital financial assets in accordance with the law can be issued on a registered site. Technologically, the bank is ready to work with such fiat currency, "Popov said at the seminar" Digital Transformation and Prospects for Regulating the Digital Economy, "held at Sberbank Corporate University (quoted by Interfax).

The registration procedure takes 45 days from the date of application. During this time, either the platform will register or send it any comments that will need to be corrected. Inside the bank, the technology has already been tested.

Sberbank registers its cryptocurrency Sbercoin

We see that it works, it is convenient for customers, "said Popov. - The easiest use of [ubercoin - approx. TAdviser] - digital bill. It seems to us that replacing a paper bill with an electronic one opens up great opportunities.

One of the unresolved issues, he said, is the taxation of digital financial assets. But the bank expects that it will clear up, and the Sbercoin project will be launched in the spring of 2021.

Earlier, the head of Sberbank German Gref said that the creation of his own cryptocurrency by the bank is timed to coincide with the law on digital financial assets (CFA), which entered into force on January 1, 2021, which, according to the banker, will allow you to fully begin to apply blockchain and in the future will radically change the banking business for several years.

In accordance with the law, blockchain platforms, exchanges, banks and other organizations that will issue CFA and conduct sales and exchange transactions must register in a special register of the Bank of Russia.^[2]

2020: Announcement of Sbercoin

In early August 2020, Sberbank announced the release of its cryptocurrency - Sbercoin. It will be tied to the ruble and is expected to help the credit institution accelerate calculations in its ecosystem.

The fact that Sberbank is preparing to issue a steeblock - a digital coin with a fixed ruble value - for settlements for digital financial assets (CFA), write Vedomosti with reference to the director of the Transactional Business division of Sberbank Sergey Popov.  The representative of the state bank in a conversation with the publication explained that the new law "On Digital Financial Assets" "allows you to issue your digital assets and exchange them for other similar assets."

Sberbank announced the release of its cryptocurrency

From the point of view of the bank, it is also interesting for us. Probably, we can issue, on the basis of the law that was adopted, a token that we can link to the ruble, such an appropriate steablecone that can become the basis, a settlement tool for some other digital financial assets,  "Popov said during the online discussion" Digital financial assets in practice. "

According to Igor Kuzmichev, commercial director of the blockchain developer Waves Enterprise, Sberbank has long been working on the technical and legal possibility of issuing Sbercoin as a calculation tool, so the law on the CFA should spur the bank's work in this direction.

The launch of its own digital money may be associated with the bank's desire to accelerate transactions within the ecosystem and reduce their cost, Antonina Levashenko, head of the Russian Center for Competence and Analysis of OECD Standards at the RANEPA, told the newspaper.

So far, the new law describes only the general requirements for the release and circulation of cryptocurrencies - companies will have to wait for the adoption of additional regulations for their practical launch, probably in the fall of 2020, the Vedomosti publication of August 6 says.^[3]

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