VTB Factoring, a subsidiary of the Russian state bank, reported the first major operation with digital financial assets. As part of the agreement, the bank’s subsidiary acquired a pool of tokenized debt from the engineering company Metrowagonmash, issued through the Lighthouse fintech platform.
On Wednesday, June 29, VTB reported the operation on its website, stating that it was the first issuance and placement of cash-backed digital financial assets in the Russian Federation. In the announcement, the bank compares it to issuing short-term commercial bonds.
Anton Musatov, CEO of VTB Factoring, highlighted the potential of the new technology in terms of Russian companies’ access to the necessary funds for their operational activities.:
“Apart from the standard factoring procedure, [aquí] a client does not necessarily have to sign a service contract to sell his debt pool. The issuer’s willingness to tokenize it and the bank factoring’s decision to acquire it.”
In June 2022, the largest Russian bank, Sber announced that its first operation with digital financial assets (DFA) would take place in mid-July, after finally obtaining a license from the country’s central bank.
Although the current DFA legislation came into effect in 2020, The head of the Financial Markets Committee of the Lower House of the Russian Parliament has introduced a bill that would ban the use of DFA as a “monetary substitute” in June 2022.
In February 2022, the VTB conducted the first successful test of operation with “digital rubles”, a digital currency project of the Bank of Russia. Later, the bank announced its first purchase of DFA in exchange for the digital ruble. At press time, there is no information on whether the aforementioned operation was carried out through the CBDC.
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