**Russia's largest bank will offer crypto wallets and digital depositories to its retail and investment clients by year-end, marking the most concrete signal yet that Moscow's years-long effort to contain digital assets has given way to a licensed market framework.
Russia's largest bank will offer crypto wallets and digital depositories to its retail and investment clients by year-end, marking the most concrete signal yet that Moscow's years-long effort to contain digital assets has given way to a licensed market framework.
Russia's largest bank, Sberbank, plans to introduce a cryptocurrency wallet and digital depository by December, bringing the state-controlled lender into a market the country spent years trying to suppress. The services will be integrated into Sberbank Online and SberInvestments after Russia's "On Digital Currency and Digital Rights" bill takes effect Sept. 1, according to Kirill Tsarev, first deputy chairman of the bank's management board.
"As regulations emerge, we will prepare a service for our clients. Essentially, it will be a crypto wallet, which we will implement first in Sberbank Online and SberInvestments," Tsarev said.
The legislation creates licenses for crypto trading, custody, digital-to-fiat exchange and cross-border settlements. Non-qualified investors will be allowed to trade under testing requirements with annual limits capped at roughly 300,000 rubles, or about $3,800. Market participants have until July 1, 2027, to enter the official registry, according to RBC, which first reported the timeline.
The shift represents a near-complete reversal from the central bank's position in January 2022, when the Bank of Russia called for a broad ban on crypto trading, mining and usage, citing risks to financial stability and monetary policy. The Finance Ministry pushed a competing regulatory bill over the central bank's objections, keeping crypto payments prohibited while creating a path for licensed trading. After Russia's invasion of Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin signed a law in 2022 tightening the ban on using cryptocurrencies for domestic payments.
Cross-border crypto use became the exception after Western sanctions cut Russian banks off from parts of the global payments system. Russia legalized crypto mining and an experimental cross-border settlement regime in 2024, giving the central bank authority to approve selected firms for foreign trade transactions. The Moscow Exchange has also moved into the space, rolling out cash-settled futures contracts tied to bitcoin, ether, solana, XRP and TRX.
VTB and T-Bank, two other major Russian financial institutions, are working on digital depositories after the law takes effect, RBC reported.
The Sberbank wallet would give the bank's massive retail client base access to authorized cryptocurrencies inside the lender's own mobile and investment apps. Sberbank also plans to build a digital depository for storing and accounting for tokens, creating an integrated custody and trading infrastructure that mirrors the structure of regulated crypto platforms in jurisdictions like the UAE and Hong Kong.
The practical effect of the new framework depends on which tokens Russia designates as authorized and how strictly the 300,000-ruble annual limit constrains retail participation. The legislation does not legalize crypto payments domestically — that ban remains in place — but the licensed trading and cross-border settlement channels create a formal on-ramp for Russian capital into digital assets for the first time.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.
