Bank of Russia Registers Another Digital Asset Issuer

The Central Bank of Russia has added another entity to its register of authorized issuers of digital financial assets. The platform, called ‘Masterchain,’ becomes the fifth ‘information system operator’ in the country that can legally tokenize traditional assets and organize their trade.

The Central Bank of Russia (CBR) has included the company Distributed Registry Systems, with its Masterchain platform, to the register of operators of information systems which can be used to issue digital financial assets (DFAs), the business news portal RBC reported.

Four other issuers have been registered so far. These are the tokenization service Atomyze, the fintech company Lighthouse, as well as Sberbank and Alfa-Bank, the largest state-owned and private bank in the Russian Federation, respectively.

Established in April, 2021, Distributed Registry Systems is an IT company specialized in developing blockchain-based solutions for the financial, transport, logistics, and other industries. Several large Russian banks, Moscow Stock Exchange and Association “Fintech” are among its founders.

Initially, the company plans to issue digital financial assets for rights to monetary claims, either in the form of bonds that are not linked to specific assets, or as structural instruments linked to various assets, a press release detailed.

In the future, other types of DFAs will be launched on its platform. Earlier this month, Moscow Credit Bank, the biggest private regional bank in Russia, announced it has used Masterchain to issue Russia’s first digital bank guarantee in Chinese yuan.

DFAs, digital assets that have an issuing entity, were regulated in Russia with the law “On Digital Financial Assets” which went into force in January, 2021.

In February of this year, the State Duma, the lower house of Russian parliament, adopted a bill on first reading that will allow financial platform operators to also develop and manage blockchain platforms.

Russia is yet to regulate decentralized cryptocurrencies like bitcoin. Amid Western sanctions imposed over the invasion of Ukraine, including financial restrictions, support has increased in Moscow for legalizing at least some crypto operations, in cross-border payments, for example.

Do you think Russia will continue to expand its market for digital financial assets? Share your expectations in the comments section below.