Russia's largest state-owned bank plans to launch a stablecoin this year

Sberbank, the largest state bank in Russia, is preparing to release its own stablecoin: Sbercoin.  

The news was announced by the director of the Transaction Business Division of Sberbank, Sergey Popov, as reported by Russian news outlet Vedomosti.

The token, which will be used for settlements for digital financial assets, is pegged to the ruble to reduce exposure to currency fluctuations. The news of the bank's preparation for a stablecoin did not come as a surprise to many Russian experts as the bank has been actively looking into the details of the latest technologies in the fintech space lately, according to the report. 

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"Sber's specialists have been working on the technical and legal possibility of issuing Sbercoin as a settlement tool for a long time, therefore, undoubtedly, the adoption of the law on CFA [digital financial assets] will become a trigger that will significantly increase the intensity of work in this area," Igor Kuzmichev, commercial director of blockchain developer Waves Enterprise told the outlet. 

According to Popov, the new law on “Digital Financial Assets” also permits corporations to launch their own digital assets and trade them for other similar ones.

However, since the law merely outlines the fundamental requirements for the issuance and circulation of crypto assets, corporations will have to wait for more official guidelines for its practical launch to come into effect. The expected timeline for potential issuance of practical steps is this year in fall, as specified in the report.