Invest2 publishersIndependently confirmed2 min readPublished
Sberbank and VTB take three of the nine slots in Russia's first crypto registers
Bank of Russia's first crypto registers give Sberbank and VTB three of the nine slots. Both banks plan to open crypto trading to their clients by December, though Sberbank's listing so far covers custody alone.
The Investor · Invest desk
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What happened
- Sberbank plans to start crypto trading and custody on Dec. 1, initially supporting bitcoin, ether and USDT.
- VTB deputy CEO Vitaly Sergeichuk said the bank expects to open digital currency trading through VTB My Investments as early as November, with its own exchange following in December.
- The other six slots go to Zefir, Sistema Crypto and T Invest Lab as exchange operators, and to Atomyze, Voltari and Cloud Infrastructure as custodians.
- Every registered firm must follow transaction and accounting rules from the day it enters the register and has until Sept. 1, 2027 to meet the remaining requirements.
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Why it matters
- precedent Existing financial market participants can use a simplified admission route, so later register rounds favor banks and brokers over new crypto-native applicants.
- cost Under July's draft rules a new custodian needs 50 million to 250 million rubles of equity depending on its services, an entry cost that weighs most on firms without an existing balance sheet.
- constraint With the ban on paying for goods and services in crypto kept in place, the banks can sell it only as an asset to hold, trade or, under Sberbank's August plan, pledge as loan collateral.
The two registers hold nine entries between them, four exchange operators and five custodians [18], but only eight firms, because VTB sits on both lists [5]. Sberbank and VTB fill a third of the entries and are two of the eight firms [20].
The more interesting term is Sberbank's own listing. Its custodian slot covers recording assets, processing transfers and giving clients access to the addresses where their holdings sit [12]. Buying and selling crypto in a firm's own name and with its own money, outside organized trading venues, is what an exchange operator is registered to do [11]. Sberbank describes its Dec. 1 infrastructure as covering trading and settlement as well as depository services [1]. According to Cointelegraph, the bank said on Monday that it had applied for custodian status [6]. The central bank published its registers on Tuesday [4]. Of the two banks, only VTB holds both roles today [5].
That leaves Sberbank three routes to Dec. 1. It can pass client orders to a registered operator, VTB or one of the three others [7], keeping custody and the customer while another firm's book takes the trade. It can win an exchange-operator listing of its own before launch. Or it can open with custody and add trading later. In the first and third cases, VTB's exchange is the bank-owned venue best placed to take early flow. If Sergeichuk's November date holds, VTB's retail access also arrives before Sberbank's [21].
The banks' edge is distribution. Sberbank, Russia's largest lender [10], plans to run its crypto services through SberBank Online, SberInvestments and SberBusiness [2], apps its clients already use. A Sberbank customer who wants bitcoin does not have to open an account at a new firm. On that basis I'd expect the two banks to carry most of the retail money that enters the regulated market in its first year.
The evidence for that view is timing and existing apps, nothing more. Neither the Bank of Russia nor the banks published client or volume figures. If the three other exchange operators report more trading than VTB in the months after launch, the bank-led reading is wrong.
What to watch
- Whether the Bank of Russia adds Sberbank to the exchange-operator register before its Dec. 1 launch, or Sberbank names an operator to route client trades through.
- The first client or trading figures from VTB My Investments after a November start, set against the three other registered exchange operators.