Feb 3 (Reuters) - Russia's largest lender Sberbank plans to launch a decentralised finance (DeFi)
platform within the next few months, the Interfax news agency
reported.
Sberbank says it wants to make the Russian decentralised
finance system the best in the world, and is currently beta
testing its own platform.
Decentralised finance platforms allow users to perform
typical banking transactions, such as lending, saving and
investing, based on distributed ledger, or blockchain,
technology.
Advocates say it could reduce banking costs and eventually
even replace traditional banks, while critics say the system has
few real-world uses and suffers the same drawbacks as the crypto
world, such as lack of regulation and vulnerability to fraud and
money laundering.
Traditional financial institutions are looking at how to get
into the space and integrate DeFi technology with their existing
regulated operations.
Sberbank will launch open testing in March of its platform
and aims to start commercial operations by the end of April, the
Interfax news agency quoted Konstantin Klimenko, head of
products at Sberbank's blockchain laboratory, as saying.
Sberbank's DeFi platform will be based on the Ethereum
blockchain, the second-largest crypto currency by market
capitalisation after bitcoin, Klimenko said on Friday.
(Reporting by Reuters, Editing by Louise Heavens)
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