Sberbank Plans to Accept Ether and USDT as Collateral for Crypto-Backed Loans

Sberbank, Russia’s largest bank, plans to accept ether and Tether’s USDT as collateral for crypto-backed loans alongside bitcoin, once regulators allow the assets to circulate publicly. Deputy Chairman Anatoly Popov told state news agency TASS that the bank will adapt its existing products to Russia’s new crypto rules first, then gradually widen the list of assets it takes.

The Bank of Russia named bitcoin, ether and USDT in an August draft list of cryptocurrencies cleared to trade publicly on Russian exchanges, selecting them on market capitalization, average daily trading volume and at least five years of price history on foreign platforms. Russia’s new crypto law takes effect Sept. 1, permitting trading through regulated intermediaries and applying the same requirements to foreign stablecoins. Crypto payments inside the country remain banned, and market participants have until July 2027 to obtain licenses.

For a bank under full U.S. blocking sanctions, building a lending book collateralized in dollar-pegged stablecoins introduces a counterparty that can switch the collateral off. Tether says it freezes USDT linked to sanctioned entities and has coordinated with OFAC and U.S. law enforcement on freezes exceeding $344 million. The Bank of Russia flagged the same problem in June, warning that stablecoin issuers can seize tokens from lawful owners under unilateral restrictions without a court order.

Sberbank has faced U.S. blocking sanctions since April 2022 and an EU asset freeze since that July. Ether and bitcoin carry no equivalent issuer risk.

In December, Sberbank issued a Bitcoin-backed loan to miner Intelion Data, holding the collateral through its own custody product and declining to disclose the loan size. Russian policymakers have been drafting the framework for more than a year, with the central bank proposing that banks and brokerages run crypto exchanges under existing licenses while initially capping crypto exposure at 1% of a bank’s capital.

Related Listen: New US Rules Could Force Coinbase to Delist Tether

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