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Sberbank, Russia’s largest lender, has been added to the Bank of Russia’s register of crypto exchange operators, clearing it to trade digital currencies ahead of a planned December launch, according to Cointelegraph. Blockchainreporter dated the entry to Oct 12 in the central bank’s register.
The addition gives the state-controlled bank both licences created under Russia’s new digital-currency framework, after it joined the digital depository register earlier in the month. Sberbank plans to launch its first retail crypto products on Dec. 1, 2026 through SberBank Online, SberInvestments and SberBusiness, with Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH) and Tether’s USDt (USDT) expected to be the first supported assets.
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Key facts
- The Bank of Russia’s updated register, dated Tuesday, lists 10 authorized crypto exchange operators and six digital custodians, up from four and five respectively a week earlier, per Cointelegraph.
- Blockchainreporter reported that Sberbank was among the first five digital depositories admitted on Oct. 6. Its addition to the exchange register a week later lets it trade as well as hold, a combined position that only VTB previously held among current market participants.
- Non-qualified retail investors may buy up to 300,000 rubles — roughly $3,500 — of eligible cryptocurrencies a year through each intermediary after passing a mandatory test, while qualified investors face no annual purchase cap, according to Blockchainreporter.
- Sberbank estimates crypto trading will reach at least 4 trillion rubles ($46.43 billion) in the first year, with only 20% going through exchanges, News.bitcoin reported.
- Moscow Exchange is running a pilot with professional participants and plans to enable crypto trading from Dec. 1, Managing Director of Securities Market Boris Blokhin said, per News.bitcoin.
What the approval changes
Russia’s digital-currency law, in force since Sept. 1, created two licensed roles. An exchange operator may buy and sell digital currencies on its own behalf and at its own expense outside organised trading, while a digital depository records ownership and grants clients access to the address identifiers where assets are held. Sberbank said the status lets it organise the circulation of digital currency on interfaces clients already use, rather than steering customers to a separate service.
The exchange-operator register grew from four names to ten in a single week. As of Oct. 13 it listed VTB and T-Invest Lab — part of the T-Technologies group behind T-Bank — along with Zefir and Sistema-Crypto from the first batch admitted Oct. 6; RNKO Finpilot and Professional Bank on Oct. 8; Moy Bitkoin and Khlynov Bank on Oct. 9; and Sberbank and Paradise Technology on Oct. 12, according to Blockchainreporter.
Also read: CFTC allows tokenized funds and on-chain records, not Bitcoin
The bank has already begun testing crypto purchases, sales, deposits and withdrawals through its SberBank Online app, Russian business newspaper Vedomosti reported on Thursday, citing the bank’s press office. Sberbank’s own timeline carries a caveat: it has said the December date depends on additional central bank regulations, leaving room for the schedule to slip.
Who is affected
The approval affects retail and business clients who use Sberbank’s existing platforms, as well as the other licensed venues that will go live around the same window. Cryptocurrency still cannot be used to pay for goods and services inside Russia. The framework does permit its use for cross-border settlements without an amount limit, a carve-out aimed at trade payments.
Officials expect the regulated market to draw back assets held abroad. Deputy Finance Minister Ivan Chebeskov said Russians hold nearly $44 trillion in crypto, mostly allocated in speculative investments and savings products outside the country, per News.bitcoin. Roughly 80% of trading volume may still run outside regulated channels even after launches begin.
Why it matters
Sberbank enters regulated crypto trading through the same apps millions of Russian customers already use, which makes the framework’s retail limits and mandatory testing the practical gatekeepers on how much money reaches licensed venues. Its dual exchange-and-custody position removes a step clients would otherwise face at separate venues, and it puts Russia’s largest bank alongside VTB as a combined licence holder.
The registers also show how quickly the licensing regime scaled: regulators described Oct. 6 as a first step, and a week later the list of exchange operators had more than doubled, with Sberbank by far the largest name on it.
What to watch
Institutions already on the registers must comply with transaction and recordkeeping rules from their date of inclusion and have until Sept. 1, 2027 to bring the rest of their operations into full compliance. The next concrete signals are the Bank of Russia’s final list of permitted coins and any further product guidance before the stated Dec. 1 target.
Reported by cointelegraph.com.
Sources: Cointelegraph, News.bitcoin, Blockchainreporter