Bank of Russia Official Optimistic About Blockchains

Vadim Kalukhov, who currently heads the Department of Financial Technologies at the Bank of Russia, has said that blockchain technology has been received very well by financial regulators across the globe, “If to speak of the technology, the regulators around the world relate to blockchains very favorably. I do not know of any country where the technology as such would be prohibited.” said Kalukhov, in an an interview with Russian news outlet Bankir.

Kalukhov says that the Bank of Russia is very open to letting Russian firms conduct experiments with the technology, so they can see where it can be applied most effectively. In the interview, he also explained that blockchains can reduce costs in financial markets.

Kalukhov explains:

“To us, as well as the majority of participants in the financial market, there is hope that blockchains will reduce the overall transactional costs. The Bank of Russia and regulators are considering practical ways to use the distributed registries, to understand to what extent they are of interest to the market, what opportunities they provide to customers.”

Kalukhov’s comments align closely with previous statements coming from officials at the Bank of Russia. In February, Russia’s central bank unveiled its FinTech R&D group, which was tasked with exploring the impact blockchains and distributed ledgers on the country’s financial system.

In the interview, Kalukhov also touched on the applications of the technology in secure information sharing between financial institutions, as well as notary services and real estate registries.

On the pressing issue of digital currency usage in Russia, he explains that the issue is still being debated, “It must be recognized that the issue of the digital currencies are not removed from the agenda. We see that the interest of the community has turned from private digital currencies to national ones.” says Kalukhov.

He also mentioned the limited capacities of most digital currencies to handle bigger transaction volumes – in excess of 3 to 7 operations per second – as one of the major obstacles to their adoption:

“Even for the purposes of payment systems that are implemented in Russia, this is insufficient.”

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