OREANDA-NEWS. Sberbank and the Federal Antimonopoly Service of the Russian Federation have launched a pilot project called Digital Ecosystem for exchanging documents using blockchain technology. The goal of the project is to study the possibilities of distributed document storage, which may increase the speed, reliability and quality of interaction during document exchange.

Sberbank and the FAS Russia have implemented an electronic interaction model which allows documents to be transferred and stored in encrypted format and provides for signing of documents using electronic signatures. The project involves Russian companies who are actively deploying innovative solutions, such as Aeroflot, Russian Coal, and ForteInvest.

“Digital Ecosystem is innovative because the document exchange process does not involve communications providers. The convenience of this solution and its cost-optimising effect is achieved by using the networks of its participants,” commented Stepan Kuznetsov, Managing Director of Sberbank’s Shared Services Department.

Mr. Andrey Tsarikovsky, Deputy Head of the FAS Russia, commented: “This decentralising approach cuts costs because data processing centres are not required and the requirements for equipment protection are lowered. It is noteworthy that Russia is one of the first countries in the world where the state and market participants are looking at these innovations as a way to simplify business operations.”

Sberbank is Russia’s largest bank and a leading global financial institution. Sberbank holds almost one third of aggregate Russian banking sector assets, it is the key lender to the national economy and the biggest deposit taker in Russia. The Central Bank of the Russian Federation is the founder and principal shareholder of Sberbank owning 50% of the Bank's authorized capital plus one voting share, with the remaining 50% held by domestic and international investors. Sberbank has more than 135 million individual customers and more than 1 million corporate clients in 20 countries. Sberbank has the largest distribution network in Russia with almost 17,000 branches, and its international operations include UK, US, CIS, Central and Eastern Europe, Turkey and other countries.