Tinkoff Investments, the online stockbroker of the leading Russian private bank Tinkoff, is investigating cryptocurrency investment services despite the fact that the Bank of Russia prevented him from launching such tools.
The director of Tinkoff Investments, Dmitry Panchenko, stated that the bank’s broker portal is considering projects related to investing in cryptocurrencies, but it is too early to discuss specific ideas.
The company is now working on research and development initiatives targeting a range of cryptocurrency-related services, Panchenko said in an October 28 interview with local news agency TASS. Tinkoff Investments is specifically looking at crypto-products from companies such as the international payments giant PayPal, as well as applications compatible with cryptocurrencies such as Revolut and Robin Hood.
Panchenko emphasized that even though local regulators still don’t allow companies like Tinkoff Investments to provide crypto investment services, Russians are still actively trading crypto on foreign platforms, with over $ 15 billion of crypto assets on exchanges:
“In one way or another, people are exposed to cryptocurrencies and they do it outside the country. It would be potentially correct to provide such services within the Russian legal system. This is not legally possible today, but the issue needs to be further discussed and studied. “
Panchenko added that stockbrokers like Tinkoff will benefit from the adoption of cryptocurrency investment services. He also emphasized that the bank has seen growing demand, particularly for cryptocurrency investments rather than the use of cryptocurrencies for payments, which it is prohibited in Russia by the country’s crypto law “On Digital Financial Assets”.
Tinkoff did not immediately respond to Cointelegraph’s request for comment.
The news comes months after Tinkoff CEO Oliver Hughes claimed that the Russian central bank was preventing Tinkoff from offering cryptocurrency trading services. “There is no mechanism for us to offer them that product in Russia at the moment because the central bank has a very difficult position.”Hughes said.
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