Sberbank Explores DeFi Tools and Crypto Investment Products Amid Regulatory Dialogue in Russia
Sberbank, Russia’s largest lender, is actively testing decentralized finance (DeFi) tools and offering crypto-linked investment products as part of its strategic focus on digital financial assets and blockchain infrastructure.
The bank is engaged in dialogue with the Bank of Russia and Rosfinmonitoring to integrate crypto-related services within a regulated framework. This approach aims to enable qualified investors to access digital assets through traditional banking infrastructure.
Sberbank has issued various digital financial assets and structured bonds tied to Bitcoin and Ether, as well as baskets of digital assets, with a total volume around 1.5 billion rubles. Additionally, it is launching digital asset funds that track Bitcoin and Ether indices alongside a crypto infrastructure portfolio featuring Solana, Tron, Avalanche, and BNB.
The bank is also developing its own blockchain platform designed to issue and manage digital financial assets, supporting smart contracts and tokenization. Beyond crypto-linked instruments, Sberbank has issued digital assets linked to commodities and crypto indices. In March, the bank launched a blockchain-powered token that tracks global cocoa prices.
Sberbank anticipates a convergence of traditional banking and DeFi over time and is exploring interoperability with public blockchains, primarily focusing on Ethereum. The bank underlines that regulatory clarity will be key to broader integration of these technologies.
Central bank projections suggest that digital asset holdings in domestic wallets in Russia could reach hundreds of billions of rubles by early 2025.
At the FI Day AI & Blockchain conference in Moscow, Sberbank executives shared their strategy emphasizing digital financial assets, blockchain infrastructure, and regulated access to crypto investments as central to the bank’s future development.
