Two of the largest banks in Russia—Alfa-Bank and Sberbank—have begun the process of starting their own trading solutions for six of the “most reliable” cryptocurrencies.
The projects are in line with the Russian central bank’s regulations, which require all participants in the cryptocurrency market to register with it.
“We want to offer our clients a completely transparent version of entry into digital assets that fully meets the regulatory requirements that would allow them to invest in an interesting product in Russia,” said Anna Ivanchuk, deputy director of Sberbank Private Banking.
Anton Rakhmonov, managing director of product development at Alfa-Bank, considers that it’s only a matter of time before cryptocurrencies become a global phenomenon, adding that it would be foolish to ignore them.
“Our goal is to accelerate the adoption of a decision on the recognition of the CFA investment assets and introduce them into the legal field as quickly as possible,” he added.
It’s not clear exactly which six cryptocurrencies are going to be included in these platforms, but Russian newspaper Kommersant suggests that Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, and Litecoin would be among them, citing that they account for 75% of the entire coin market.
Something tells us, however, that this system will not put cryptocurrencies directly in the hands of the banks’ clients.
“The client actually receives a fund unit. The assets backing these funds are stored using custody solutions and audited by Group IB cybersecurity. The unit is liquid, so it is possible to request a withdrawal to the client’s currency at any time,” said Alexei Prokofiev, managing partner at AddCapital, the provider for the infrastructure these banks will use.
Prokofiev adds that cryptocurrencies would be bought and sold using audited cryptocurrency exchanges like Bitstamp or Kraken.
For a country that had its run-ins with cryptocurrencies, it appears that Russia is among the first to venture head-first into cryptocurrencies at the commercial bank level.
This article appeared first on Cryptovest