Sberbank’s solution first to get approval of Bank of Russia’s regulatory sandbox

A service developed by Sberbank Rossii PAO (MCX:SBER) has become the first to successfully pass the piloting phase of the Bank of Russia’s regulatory sandbox, Sberbank announced today.

Sberbank’s service helps remotely control permissions to carry out transactions using corporate client accounts.

The piloting was carried out by professional associations of financial market participants and interested state bodies. The Bank of Russia and expert councils that are created under the regulatory platform have made recommendations and recognised the introduction of the service as viable.

The regulatory sandbox of the Bank of Russia was launched in April 2018. It is a mechanism for piloting new financial services and technology that require changes to regulations. The use of innovative financial services, products and technology is modelled in the platform. As a result of the pilot, a financial service or technology can be approved through subsequent changes to the legal framework and can lead to their commercial roll-out. Sometimes, an initiative can be recognised as inviable.

Any organisation that has developed or plans to use an innovative financial service or technology can initiate a pilot on the platform. To do this, the initiating company must send a request to the Bank of Russia. According to the “Megaregulator”, more than 20 requests from financial organisations, fintech companies and others, have already been sent to its regulatory sandbox. Projects related to digital financial assets and introduction of new technology are preparing for the testing.

The launch of the regulatory sandbox is in line with the key fintech priorities that the Central Bank has set itself for 2018-2020. In a document, published in February this year, the Central Bank said it planned to transform the Russian digital environment for financial services via the development of new infrastructure, including a platform-marketplace for financial products and services, a platform for the registration of financial transactions and a platform based on DLT.

Let’s note that despite the Bank of Russia’s cautious position with regard to cryptocurrencies, the regulator continues to be open towards blockchain. This stance is echoed by other Russian institutions. Russia’s prime minister Dmitry Medvedev, for instance, has been a proponent of blockchain.