State-owned Sberbank eyes launching Russia’s stablecoin

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Russia’s largest bank Sberbank is reportedly preparing to launch a stablecoin. The “Sbercoin” will be equal to a fixed amount of Russian Ruble and it will be used for digital financial asset settlements, the bank said.

“Sberbank specialists have been working on the technical and legal possibility of issuing Sbercoin as a settlement tool for a long time,” said Igor Kuzmichev, commercial director of blockchain developer Waves Enterprise. “Therefore, undoubtedly, the adoption of the law on CFA will become a trigger that will significantly increase the intensity of work in this area.”

Russia’s digital currency law

Russia’s latest digital currency law, which recognizes digital currencies as a legitimate asset in Russia, has paved the way for Sberbank to launch their stablecoin.

Beyond recognizing digital currency as a legitimate asset, and prohibiting Russian citizens to pay for any goods and services with digital currency, the bill gives Russian companies permission to tokenize their business and issue digital shares via the blockchain. It is unclear when Sberbank is looking to ssue their token, but the Russian digital currency bill is to become effective in January 2021, 

Optimizing banking and finance

Sberbank’s stablecoin is a significant step forward for the legacy finance industry. The bank has recognized that blockchain can reduce payment settlement costs and time and has therefore made the move to implement the technology. As time goes on, we are likely to see more traditional financial institutions implement blockchain technology since it can introduce significant advantages over the current legacy systems used in the banking and finance industries. 

For that reason, among many others, several governments around the world have been researching, developing, and piloting a central bank digital currency with the belief that the next evolution of money will be to digitize a majority of the fiat currency that is in circulation.