Sber proposes regulating tokens like bank accounts in sandbox, prepared to be custodian
MOSCOW. July 18 (Interfax) - Sberbank is proposing to consider customers' tokens as part of their bank accounts and regulate them with the general rules for banking services as regards management, disposal and protection of owners' rights, and has sent its proposals to the Central Bank of Russia (CBR), the director of Sber's alternative payment methods division, Anatoly Pronin said.
The CBR said in March that it had sent the government a proposal to allow transactions with cryptocurrencies within an experimental legal regime for "very qualified" investors. This new investor status could be obtained by individuals if their investments in securities and deposits exceed 100 million rubles and if their income in the past year totalled more than 50 million rubles.
The CBR also said in its letter that it still does not consider cryptocurrency to be a means of payment and therefore proposes to simultaneously prohibit settlements on transactions between residents with cryptocurrency outside of the regulatory sandbox.
"We propose to introduce regulation similar to bank accounts, where we accept tokens from a specific customer and in exchange give him obligations to carry out transactions in his name on his behalf. We also assume guarantees for the safekeeping of the token. In the event of some hack or their loss for other reasons we will be prepared to compensate them. We're also prepared, naturally, to enter them into financial statements, treasury accounts and accounting of risks," Pronin said in the Federation Council.
Under the bank's proposals, lenders would be responsible for implementing anti-money laundering measures, and would be able to verify the status of "very qualified" investors, as well as authenticate recipients of cryptocurrencies.
"As concerns limited circulation, we understand the requirements of the Bank of Russia and regulators for restricting the circulation of cryptocurrencies on the territory of the Russian Federation. In this regard we propose to introduce authentication of bank customers who use cryptocurrency through the unified identification and authentication system [UIAS, used to access the Gosuslugi public services website, for example], verify their status as a very qualified investor or any other legal status that the Bank of Russia deems possible. We're prepared to qualify ourselves, as is done now with regular qualified investors," Pronin said.
"For the restriction of circulation we're prepared to implement a system of remote authentication of cryptocurrency recipients - we already have such software suites [...] - as well as check recipients by the sanction lists of the Russian Federation's government," he said.
The bank will also have its own analytics on customers for whom it will provide custodial services, and is prepared to provide all information on the movement of a customer's crypto assets to the Federal Financial Monitoring Service upon request.
"Since we will be the custodian, we will have our own onchain analytics, meaning we will match a given customer to a given crypto wallet. Crypto wallets, of course, will be kept within the bank's periphery. We will also have our own system of high-risk wallets and scoring of customers when carrying out transactions within our cusody," Pronin said.
He said the bank wants to use a three-level model for assessing risks similar to what is used in Belarus. This means the bank will monitor and identify transactions subject to mandatory control and notify regulators about them. The bank is also prepared to identify transactions that seem unusual and build its own risk model.
"Secondly, we're prepared to take measures of a preventative nature aimed at preventing customers' involvement in transactions related to [money laundering and financing of terrorism]. Specifically, we believe we need to pay particular attention to cross-border deals, where the recipient is a party registered or located in a high-risk nation, a so-called 'unfriendly' country," Pronin said.
"Thirdly, we're prepared to consider measures for regulatory verification of customers in the list of extremists and terrorists. At the request of the Financial Monitoring Service we're prepared to provide data on customers to whom we provide custody services in full, as well as the movement of their crypto assets both onchain and offchain," Pronin said.
The government is also willing to ask customers for confirmation documents on cross-border transactions in order to comply with currency regulation and currency control laws when the cryptocurrency is used as a transaction instrument, he said.
