- A road map for creating a legislative framework for organizing ICO as part of Bank of Russia regulatory environment will be formed as a result of the transaction
- Once the regulatory changes come into effect, Sberbank and NSD will make a decision on developing this service for their clients
National Settlement Depository (NSD) and Sberbank have summed up the results of a test ICO transaction based on blockchain via the Bank of Russia’s sandbox. Level One, a company that manages Moscow’s biggest commercial lecture hall, was the issuer of the transaction. The project was developed on the basis of the Masterchain platform.
Tatiana Zharkova, Managing Director of the FinTech Association, said: “The tokenization of assets based on blockchain let participants conduct financial transactions quickly and safely. We have to note, that the emergence of such projects in Masterchain reflects a demand for and a great interest in the blockchain platform of the financial market.”
During the transaction in the test environment, 285,800 tokens were placed. These were transferred from the issuer’s digital asset account to the Sberbank account. Then, a few tokens were used to pay for a set of online tasks offered by the issuer, and it was technically implemented by transferring tokens from the Sberbank account to the issuer’s digital asset account.
In the recent stage of piloting, the issuer utilized tokens received from Sberbank by sending them to an irretrievable address using blockchain, as, according to the offer, tokens cannot be reused.
All actions related to the transaction were undertaken via the Masterchain platform and the node set in NSD.
During the test, ICO advantages for its participants were confirmed:
- The fullest access of investment projects to institutional investors and their clients;
- Institutional investors receive an access to investments in tokens with minimum expenses and resources;
- Individuals may easily invest in tokens via financial organizations.
Work on the test ICO in the Bank of Russia’s sandbox began in May 2018. Sberbank was the coordinator and underwriter of the placement, NSD was the custodian, providing record-keeping for digital assets and settlements during the issuance and circulation.
Participation in the Bank of Russia’s sandbox allowed the participants to receive an assessment of the Bank’s experts and profile agencies, to form a working road map for creating a legislative framework for the service, to assess the specifics of work with such transactions and to minimize associated risks.
The upcoming adoption of bills “On Digital Financial Assets” and “On Attracting Investments via Investment Platforms” will allow Sberbank and NSD to scale their experience and to attract financing by issuing tokens to a wide circle of their clients.
Eddie Astanin, Chairman of the Executive Board, NSD, said: “According to our estimates, approximately 10% of global transactions with digital assets in the amount of $200 billion are conducted by Russian retail investors. When the legislative framework will come into effect, they will be able to carry out their transactions in Russia via Russian infrastructure. Our goal is to contribute to the implementation of the national policy to digitalize our country’s economy, in particular, for the emergence of a new class of assets for investors, as well as ecosystems of ICO and the circulation of digital assets in the secondary market.”
Andrei Shemetov, Vice President of Sberbank, Head of the Global Markets Department of Sberbank CIB, pointed out: “Sberbank clients express their interest in this way of attracting funds, and we are eager to provide them with this service once the relevant laws go into force, and to act as a driver of institutionalization and promotion of this type of transactions.”