Russia’s Biggest Bank, Sberbank, To Stop Cryptocurrency Project Due To Awaiting Regulations

Largest Russian Bank To Halt Crypto Plans As Central Bank Has Negative Stance On It

Sberbank, known as the largest state-owned bank in Russia, has decided to suspend its crypto-related plans because of the negative reaction of the country’s central bank.

According to vice president Andrey Shemetov, the bank was currently awaiting the legislation that would finally allow it to trade cryptos. However, the local regulator and the central bank were against the widespread adoption of cryptos right now in the country.

Because of this, the bank had no choice but to halt its crypto-related plans. The exact project that was suspended was not specified, however, as it was not public yet. The plans for the project started in early 2018 and continued to be developed since then. Early tests were made together with another Russian banking group called Alfa Bank.

At the beginning of the year, a subsidiary of the bank set in Switzerland, Sberbank Switzerland AG, affirmed that the branch would launch a new crypto exchange. The reason for launching it there was that Switzerland was considerably more pro-crypto than the Russian authorities. We can only speculate that the country was intending to do something similar in Russia.

In fact, the authorities of Russia have been unable to pass any kind of crypto legislation whatsoever. The country has been promising to solve the issue for a long time now but it always ends up postponing the results.

For instance, the country has recently decided to postpone the adoption of the crypto law because of the Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering. The international entity asked Russia to delay the approval of the law because of certain terms which were used in the bill.

Most of the governmental organizations are not ready to agree on anything, so the situation just keeps being delayed.

President Vladimir Putin affirmed last year that the Congress had to approve the draft bill until the Spring of 2019, but it looks like some politicians are not so interested in doing this anymore, especially after the Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev affirmed that it was no longer a priority to approve the regulations since the interest in cryptos decreased over time.