Blockchain technology can help solve current problems with deals, according to Sberbank’s deputy CEO. Russia’s largest bank is working with other financial institutions to develop blockchain-based payment applications, the banker revealed.
Sberbank sees solution to Russia’s problems with blockchain settlements
With major Russian banks disconnected from the world’s main system of interbank payments, FASTbecause of Moscow’s war against Ukraine, blockchain will help solve the problem with payments, the first deputy CEO of Sberbank, Alexander Vedyakhin, is convinced.
“It is blockchain technology that will make it possible to solve this problem because it is a distributed ledger, there is no single point of decision making, no hub, no knife switch that can be turned off,” Vedyakhin explained, quoted by Interfax. . news agency.
“Everyone has everything registered, there are special protocols that allow this to be done confidentially,” the executive added during a meeting of the Committee on the Budget and Financial Markets of the Federation Council, the upper house of the Russian parliament.
Majority state-owned Sberbank, which is the largest bank in Russia by assets, is currently conducting research on the applications of blockchain technology together with other banking institutions and the Central Bank of Russia. Vedyakhin, who believes that blockchain will be even more relevant in 2023, emphasized:
The next generation payment systems are blockchain.
Problems with speed and privacy overcome in the latest protocols, says Vedyakhin
The banker also noted that crypto-related technology has developed in recent years and highlighted some of the outstanding issues that needed to be resolved. These include the capacity of blockchain platforms and the confidentiality of transactions.
“The first was speed. What we were seeing before was not allowing us to process a large number of transactions. We now believe that this issue has been generally resolved. The second was confidentiality… If we have a transaction and 10 million other people see it, it’s unlikely you’d want to do it. Now this problem has also been solved in the new protocols,” explained Alexander Vedyakhin.
Several Russian banks, including Sberbank, were subject to US and EU sanctions following the invasion of Ukraine in late February 2022. Financial restrictions severely limited Russia’s access to the global financial system.
Last June, Sberbank CEO Herman Gref said that the bank started work on establishing an international settlement system, alternative to SWIFT, and plans to complete it within a year. Russian technology and manufacturing conglomerate Rostec announced the same month a blockchain-based platform with a similar purpose. The legalization of crypto payments for cross-border agreements has also been considered as an option.
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