A recent report details that Sberbank, Russia’s largest financial institution, plans to launch its decentralized finance (defi) platform in May. Konstantin Klimenko, product director of Sberbank’s Blockchain Institute, said open testing will begin in March.
Sberbank’s Defi platform will enable large-scale commercial operations
According to areportpublished by news outlet Interfax, Moscow-based state-owned financial services company Sberbank plans to launch a decentralized financial (Defi) application. According to Konstantin Klimenko, product director of Sberbank’s Blockchain Institute, the platform is currently in closed beta testing.
“We have set a big goal – to make the Russian defi ecosystem number one,” Klimenko said. “Our network is currently operating in a closed beta test format… But starting March 1, we will move to the next stage, and it will no longer be a beta test, but an open test,” added the Sberbank blockchain laboratory executive.
The platform, which is based on Ethereum, will work in conjunction with the Web3 wallet Metamask. Sberbank’s team aims to go public by the end of April and hopes to enable large-scale commercial defi In June 2022, the Russian banking and financial services giant conducted its first digital asset transfer on its platform, which was approved by the Bank of Russia In September Sberbank announced that it will also allow the minting of non-fiat tokens (NFTs) on its platform.
In addition to the Bank of Russia, Sberbank is Russia’s largest financial institution with $559 billion in assets under management (AUM) as of 2021. The bank is also the leader in the card payment industry in the Russian Federation, commanding over 61% of the market.In January 2022, the Russian banking company launched Russia’s first blockchain-listed mutual fund (ETF). Sberbank, its executive members, and its subsidiaries have been fans of blockchain technology since 2015.
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