Sberbank Service First to Pass Bank of Russia’s Regulatory Sandbox

A service developed by Russia’s number one lender, Sberbank, has become the first to successfully pass the piloting phase of the Bank of Russia’s regulatory sandbox, the company announced on Friday.

The bank’s service helps remotely control permissions to carry out transactions using corporate client accounts. The piloting was carried out by professional associations of financial market participants and interested state bodies. The Bank of Russia and expert councils that are created under the regulatory platform have made recommendations and recognized the introduction of the service as viable, Finanz reported.

The Bank of Russia’s “regulatory sandbox” was launched in April this year. It is a mechanism for piloting new financial services and technology that require changes to regulations. The use of innovative financial services, products and technology are modeled in the platform. As a result of the pilot, a financial service or technology can be approved through subsequent changes to the legal framework and can lead to their commercial roll-out.

Any organization that has developed or plans to use an innovative financial service or technology can initiate a pilot on the platform. To do this, the company must send a request to the Bank of Russia. According to the central bank, more than 20 requests from financial organizations, tech companies, and others, have already been sent to its regulatory sandbox. Projects related to digital financial assets and the introduction of new technology are preparing for the testing.

In February this year, the Central Bank said it planned to transform the Russian digital environment for financial services via the development of new infrastructure, including a platform-marketplace for financial products and services, a platform for the registration of financial transactions and a platform based on DLT.

Despite its cautious position with regard to cryptocurrencies, the Russian monetary regulator continues to be open towards blockchain. This stance is echoed by other Russian institutions. Russia’s Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, for instance, has been a proponent of the technology.