Russia’s largest bank has launched a Blockchain Lab — Crypto News 24/7

Sberbank, Russia’s largest asset bank, has opened a blockchain lab to develop, test and promote blockchain projects.

The newly-established blockchain Laboratory will focus on developing business solutions for the broader Sberbank group, in addition to working with associations, associations, communities, and alliances to further blockchain awareness and development.

Blockchain experts will come as new employees to work under the roof of the lab, especially those with experience in creating and implementing solutions for existing financial and corporate products. When employed and operating, the lab will test top-level solutions, produce ideas to develop blockchain-based solutions, build product prototypes, pilot projects, and deploy business solutions for the Sberbank Group.

In announcements, Sberbank Vice-President Igor Bulantsev stated:

Blockchain can remarkably reshape many areas of activity related to the financial market as well as the traditional activities of the bank and customers. It is important to note that blockchain help market participants to cooperate more efficiently.

Sberbank declares that it already has more than 20 pilot projects based on the blockchain, including an effort with a federal agency for encrypting documents.

Sberbank is, in particular, a member of two of the world’s largest open-door consortia. Following an unsuccessful attempt to join the New York-based banking blockchain consortium headquartered in New York, the Russian bank became a member of the Hyperledger Blockchain Interprofessional Project in September 2016. A year later, Sberbank joined the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance (EEA) becoming the first Russian financial institution to join the workgroup developing enterprise solutions based on open-source Ethereum technology. Sberbank was also among the selected participants in the “Masterchain” a blockchain prototype by Ethereum and the central bank of Russia to test interbank transactions.

Sberbank’s blockchain lab is predicted by CEO and Bitcoin lawyer Herman Gref, who argued that the application of blockchain technology to commercial applications will take place in 2019.

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