Russia’s Sberbank proposes custody services to central bank

Russian bank Sberbank plans to offer custody services for the country’s crypto assets. With more foreign banks embracing crypto custody, Anatoly Pronin, the Executive Director of Sberbank’s Alternative Payment Solutions Department, said they presented a proposal to the central bank on domestic crypto asset regulation.

Lately, Russia’s central bank has been more open to pro-crypto policies. Last year, they permitted companies to trade in crypto to bypass Western sanctions implemented due to the Ukraine war.

Russia’s Sberbank says it wants to regulate digital assets like the funds in bank accounts

At a crypto regulation discussion, Pronin explained that Sberbank would want to oversee crypto assets like it does customer deposits, to ensure token security.

He added that their custody service would include mechanisms to freeze assets upon suspicion of illegal activity and promote secure, accessible user transactions.

Russia’s central bank disclosed it would allow financial institutions to provide crypto investment products in late May. It detailed that the new rules would cover instruments, including derivatives and tokenized instruments, tied to crypto value changes. However, investors can only engage in non-deliverable contracts, meaning they can’t hold or receive cryptocurrencies.

The bank also stated that financial institutions must follow a risk-averse assessment strategy before launching crypto instruments to avoid compromising financial stability.

However, the CBR never specified whether it would allow crypto custody services.

Sberbank came up with a workaround to bypass Western sanctions

Sberbank has been trying to make transactions easier for its users. In June, the bank devised a workaround that routes wire transfers to European banks via intermediaries, avoiding Western sanctions and the SWIFT bans.

The bank’s clients can now transfer rubles through its mobile app to European cardholders at Revolut or N26. However, on the recipient’s side, the transfers do not display Sberbank’s name; instead, they show the name of a individual, a regional city, or a payment processing entity.

So far, about 500,000 rubles, roughly $6400, can be transferred per transaction to European banks, with a monthly threshold of 3 million rubles, worth about $38,200. 

However, both N26 and Revolut distanced themselves from the alleged transfer scheme, insisting they prohibit any transactions that contravene sanctions. N26 said it routinely conducts compliance assessments, and Revolut warned users that such activity could lead to account restrictions.

Regardless, one of the bank’s staff remarked, “It’s not dangerous. The bank has always had transfers like that.”

Sberbank moves to expand crypto access for elite Russian investors

Just recently, Sberbank said it would become a market maker providing liquidity for regulated platforms that will give qualified Russian investors access to cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, a high-ranking executive unveiled.

In an interview with business news outlet RBC, the head of Sberbank’s Global Markets Department, Alexander Zozulya, praised the Bank of Russia’s “important step” to announce the development of an experimental legal regime (ELR) for crypto transactions and emphasized:

“We expect the emergence of a legal ‘sandbox,’ an analogue of a regulated crypto platform, where super-qualified investors will be allowed to operate directly with cryptocurrencies.”

During her appearance at the “Russian Stock Market—2025” conference in mid-May, Nabiullina also clarified that such transactions should be carried out exclusively within the ELR framework and available only to “highly qualified” investors.