Bank of Russia issues first approvals for crypto exchangers and digital custodians

The Bank of Russia has started adding firms to its new registers for organizations engaged in digital currency exchange and digital custodians. For high-risk payment players, the detail that matters is not the logo list itself, but the fact that Russia now has an official framework, a public checker, and a licensing path that existing financial institutions can use in simplified form.

1. Included in the register of organizations that exchange digital currencies are state-owned bank VTB, the T-Bank subsidiary T-Invest Lab, and the companies Zefir and Sistema-kripto.
2. Digital custodian licenses went to Sber, VTB, Atomayz, Voltari, and Oblachnaya infrastruktura. According to the law, digital custodians handle accounting and transfer of digital currencies and digital rights, and provide clients access to so-called address identifiers where crypto assets are recorded.
3. The first applications for inclusion in the registers were submitted on October 5. For existing financial market participants, such as banks, the licensing process is simplified.
4. The Bank of Russia has also made a public tool available on its website to check whether crypto exchangers and custodians are legitimate. The service sits inside the existing “Financial Market Participants” section, alongside a checker for the status of self-regulatory organizations (SROs).
5. Membership in an SRO is mandatory for legal operation of crypto exchangers. Under the law on state regulation of cryptocurrencies, which came into force on September 1, crypto exchangers will buy and sell digital currencies on their own behalf and for their own account outside organized trading. Russian residents will be able to legally exchange digital assets for fiat and back.

There is also a practical limit on how much appetite banks are likely to show here. Yu​​riy Belikov, managing director at Expert RA, said banks are unlikely to capture a large client base quickly, and broad demand for crypto investment and custody on bank balance sheets is also unlikely to surge, in part because credit institutions face strict rules: investments in cryptocurrency are capped at 1% of capital.