One of the major banking institutions in Russia, Alfa-Bank has developed its own platform for trading digital financial assets.
The banking institution was able to accomplish this feat after it was added to the register of digital asset issuers by the monetary authority in Russia this week.
Digital asset platform
Denis Dodon, the Director of Innovation at Alfa-Bank, announced that the institution was rolling out the ‘A-Token’ platform, which would allow digital financial assets (DFAs) to be issued.
On Thursday, the Bank of Russia announced that Alfa-Bank had been granted registration as an issuer of digital financial assets in the country, which enabled the institution to introduce its platform.
The biggest private bank in the country, Alfa-Bank has now become the second-largest Russian banking institution that can mint digital tokens, thanks to the authorization.
Sberbank is the first banking institution that has the authority to do so and the state-owned bank is also the largest in the country in terms of assets.
Some of the other companies and institutions that have been granted this license include Lighthouse, the fintech firm, which is collaborating with VTB Bank.
Tokenization service Atomyze has also gotten a license and is collaborating with Rosbank. These organizations have already introduced their digital assets.
Sberbank, on the other hand, is gearing up for introducing its decentralized finance (DeFi) platform as well.
DFAs
Alfa-Bank is planning on using its new platform for issuing its own digital financial assets (DFAs) and has already scheduled the launch of the pilot phase this month.
The bank is also interested in offering its infrastructure to other participants in the market. The bank is hoping to collaborate with private investors as well as investment companies.
Apart from that, the banking institution will also provide access to the A-Token platform via its mobile app.
More details
Dodon also revealed that two types of financial instruments would be issued by the platform. They would introduce digital financial instruments (DFAs) that are equivalent to traditional ones in the form of monetary claims.
Secondly, they would introduce completely new investment instruments, which would include tokenized physical assets like precious metals.
It was in September last year when Alfa-Bank had first made the announcement of developing an infrastructure for digital financial assets (DFAs).
Russia implemented the law named ‘On Digital Financial Assets’ in January 2021, which regulates the issuance of digital financial assets (DFAs) in the country.
This legislation applies to digital assets that have a proper issuer, but the authorities in Russia are also working on introducing a regulatory framework that would apply to decentralized cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin.
Moscow has begun using crypto payments in order to circumvent financial restrictions imposed by Western countries due to its conflict with Ukraine.
There is also a digital ruble under development by the Bank of Russia. The US Treasury Department has sanctioned both Sberbank and Alfa-Bank.
Meanwhile, the European Union has targeted the access of Russia to crypto assets in order to ensure sanctions cannot be evaded.
