The state-owned financial services firm Sberbank, located in Moscow, intends to introduce a decentralized finance application, according to a report from the news source Interfax. According to Konstantin Klimenko, the product director for Sberbank's blockchain laboratory, the platform is presently undergoing closed beta testing.
“We have set ourselves a big goal — to make the Russian defi ecosystem number one. Our network is currently working in closed beta testing format … But starting March 1st, we will move to the next phase and it will no longer be beta testing, but open testing.”
The Ethereum-based platform will function with the Metamask Web3 wallet. The Sberbank team thinks that making it publicly accessible by the end of April will allow for extensive commercial defi activities.
The largest provider of banking and financial services in Russia carried out the first transfer of digital assets on its platform in June 2022 with Bank of Russia approval. Sberbank declared in September that its platform will permit the creation of non-fungible tokens.
With $559 billion in assets under management as of 2021, Sberbank is the largest financial institution in Russia outside of the Bank of Russia. With more than 61% of the market, the bank also dominates the Russian Federation's card payments sector.
The Russian banking company introduced the country's first blockchain exchange-traded fund in January 2022. (ETF). Since 2015, Sberbank, its management team, and its subsidiaries have embraced blockchain technology.