Sberbank Attempts to Launch Russia’s First Initial Coin Offering

Sberbank CIB in a partnership with National Settlement Depository (NSD) has announced their intention to set up an Initial Coin Offering (ICO) in the Bank of Russia’s regulatory sandbox. The issuer of the digital currency will be Level One, that operates the largest lecture hall on Moscow’s financial market.

“Sberbank CIB considers the Russian ICO market to be very promising. Many Sberbank clients are interested in this type of investment, and we plan to promote this service proactively once the appropriate legislative framework comes into effect; we will be one of the drivers to institutionalize and popularize this type of transaction,” Igor Bulantsev, Senior Vice President of Sberbank, Head of Sberbank CIB, explains.

April 2018 became the start of the fintech regulatory platform launched by the Bank of Russia. Its main goals are to pilot and implement new financial technologies as well as services and virtual coins that need to have some legislative changes.

The first transaction involving the new fintech assets is planned to be conducted at the end of this summer. According to the news outlet forklog.com, NSD, the local financial market regulator, will keep track on all transaction details concerning the cryptocurrency and manage issue and circulation affairs. Sberbank CIB will be the issuance coordinator and anchor investor in crypto coins that Level One will issue.

The developers aim at adjusting the pilot technology in accordance with the requirements of the Central Bank before the release of two awaited bills on cryptocurrency trading and investment platforms.

“National Settlement Depository uses a pragmatic approach with regard to FinTech. Our end goal is to create the fundamental basis for the development of the digital economy in our country, for the emergence of a new type of asset for investors, for ICO ecosystems, and for the circulation of digital assets on the secondary market. In conjunction with market leaders, we are implementing a project to create infrastructure to record digital assets. The existence of this infrastructure is a crucial condition based on which institutional investors come to our market, the market develops rapidly, and its capitalization grows,” Eddie Astanin, Chairman of the Executive Board, NSD, says.