Russia's Sberbank Performs First Digital Financial Transaction With Blockchain

Sberbank, has carried out the first digital financial asset transactions on its own platform. (photo: @sberbank)

JAKARTA – Russia's largest lending bank, Sberbank, on Saturday, July 9 announced that it has made the first digital financial asset transaction on its own platform. This transaction was carried out by its subsidiary SberFactoring which executed a debt of 1 billion rubles (IDR 23.4 billion) with a maturity of three months.

The Bank of Russia has long voiced skepticism over cryptocurrencies, but is more open to other digital assets and granted the Atomyze Russia blockchain platform the first license to exchange digital assets.

2 lender VTB and fintech firm Lighthouse also made the country's first cash-backed digital financial asset transaction in late June.

Sberbank, which received its license in March, and said in a statement that digital assets are issued on its platform using blockchain technology and smart contracts.

"The Sberbank platform will soon be available to all the bank's corporate clients," said a source at Sberbank as quoted by Reuters.

“Russia is working to improve monitoring of cryptocurrency transactions and may start introducing industry regulation later this year,” officials said this week.